
































Qass T -Z. 5- 

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EACH AND ALL 


THE SEVEN LITTLE SISTERS TROVE 
THEIR SISTERHOOD 


A COMPANION TO 


THE SEVEN LITTLE SISTERS WHO LIVE ON THE ROUND 
BALL THAT FLOATS IN THE AIR,” “TEN BOYS 
WHO LIVED ON THE ROAD FROM LONG 
AGO TO NOW,” “GEOGRAPHICAL 
PLAYS,” ETC. 


BY 

JANE ANDREWS 

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GINN & COMPANY 


BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 


UORARY of rsoNQWSSS 
Two Ocpies 


OCT. IS iyo5 


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Copyright, 1877 , 1885 
By lee and SHEPARD 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

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GINN & COMPANY -CAM- 
BRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS 


TO 


JHarffie anti ^ntiretod 


AND TO THE FOUR YOUNGEST MEMBERS OF MY SCHOOL 


55oi9|9ic, <iEbitb, 5Datije, anb <IBeor0ie 


I DEDICATE 


THIS LITTLE BOOK 


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CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

A Pupil’s Recollections of Miss Andrews’ School v 
The Story of Agoonack and her Sail upon the 

Ice Island 

A Long Journey through a Strange Land . , 23 

What was Gemila doing all this time ... 51 

New Work for Pen-se and Lin 81 

Can the Little Brown Baby do Anything . . 106 
Christmas Time again for Louise . . . .113 





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W:. 

'.(viT. ■ 







A PUPIL’S RECOLLECTIONS OF MISS 
ANDREWS’ SCHOOL. 


One of my greatest delights while a pupil 
at Miss Andrews’ school — and I remember my 
attendance there as one long delight — was the 
coming of December ist, her birthday and mine. 
It was her custom to celebrate the birthdays of 
her scholars by allowing them to select in part 
the lessons and exercises for the day, a joyful 
privilege which was of course shared by all, though 
the pride of planning with her the session of our 
double anniversary was mine alone. All the 
birthdays were occasions to remember, for the 
final hour was pretty sure to be given up to a 
story. “ Story ” was what we always called it, 
though it might, indeed, be story, play, or poem, 
or selection from either, or a chapter from an 
unfinished book of her own. When it was the 
latter she used always to ask for our criticisms, 
which we were not at all afraid to give, though 


V 


vi A PupiVs Recollections of 

I never remember them as being anything other 
than enthusiastically favorable. But we appre- 
ciated the honor of being asked, and occasion- 
ally offered suggestions for further adventures of 
the “ Seven Little Sisters,” which were of too 
extravagant and thrilling a nature to be adopted. 

Next to birthdays, the days which we most 
prized were the very stormy ones, when but few 
were present, for these, too, brought stories, 
geographical games, experiments, and other vari- 
ations from the usual routine. There was an 
ardent rivalry between the pupils regarding these 
days, and few of us started for school on a tem- 
pestuous morning without reckoning mentally 
how many of our mates had timid parents who 
would be likely to keep them at home. Many 
a time, as I came panting up the stairs on a wild 
day in winter, have I glanced along the row of 
hat pegs, triumphant if most of them were empty, 
disappointed if they held a row of dripping hoods 
and mufflers. Once, in a storm so furious that I 
had remained over night at the house of a school- 
mate, she and I started the next morning through 
drifts more than waist deep for school, where we 
were, naturally, the only pupils. She lived nearer 
than I, and struggled home again at noon, but 
Miss Andrews kept me over night, and I had 


Miss Andrews School, vii 

the bliss of sleeping in the schoolroom itself, in 
a bed made up on two settees. 

We were all too fond of school to lose more of 
it than could be helped. When Miss Andrews 
was called to Boston on business about her books 
she would leave us to keep school by ourselves, 
appointing a special scholar to the charge of each 
class. We wrote our report of the day on the 
blackboard for her to see when she got home, and 
we so felt the responsibility of being placed on 
honor that the day was more likely to be one of 
unusual good behavior than of disorder. Once, 
and once only, I was willfully late to school. 
Learning on the way that the ice had broken up 
in the Merrimac and carried away a span of the 
bridge, I turned aside and ran down to see the 
sight. I returned to school after having seen it, 
half an hour late, and very uncomfortable; not 
that I feared either punishment or scolding, but 
some expression of disappointment, which I should 
mind more than either. But Miss Andrews was 
greatly interested in what I had seen, said she 
was glad I went, and assured the school that if 
she had known of it in time she would have taken 
the whole of us down to the river herself. 

Indeed, she often called our attention to matters 
of local or national interest, and kept us as wide- 


viii A PupiV s Recollections of 

awake and with as broad an outlook as possible. 
During a presidential year she explained to us the 
chief problems at issue between the two parties, 
and there were few of us who did not become in 
consequence very ardent young politicians. The 
excitement and suspense of the Tilden-Hayes con- 
test and the novel expedient of the Electoral Com- 
mission roused the warmest interest in school, and 
I remember running a half mile bareheaded, and 
leaving my supper standing on the table, to tell 
the final news to another girl as interested as I. 

These are very trifling incidents, but, indeed, all 
the school incidents that I recall are so, for the 
history of a perfect school, like that of a fortunate 
country, leaves little to relate. One thing which 
was characteristic is that when one day we begged 
Miss Andrews to give us a motto, we found it 
shortly afterwards on the wall, done very daintily 
in gold and blue — the words which I am sure 
were the very best that could have been given to 
us, well-intentioned, careless, inconsiderate, ex- 
uberant youngsters that we were — Self-Control. 

But it is not possible to give much of an idea of 
a school where the central spring of everything 
was the personality of the teacher. Going to 
school to Miss Andrews was much more going to 
Miss Andrews than going to school ; and far more 


Miss Andrews School, ix 

valuable than anything she taught us, well and 
wisely as we were taught, was the contact with 
her sweet and strong and noble nature. I think 
I can say that the public opinion of that school 
was of a higher standard than that of any school 
or circle I have since encountered. However 
faulty, mean, or childish the behavior of any of us, 
I do not think there was one who did not respect 
and admire what was good and fine, and often, if 
not always, aspire to it. A pupil of that school 
who left it with intelligence unawakened must 
have been dull indeed ; a pupil who left it with 
no stirring of those finer guides to goodness, 
sympathy, and the sense of honor, must have 
been one in whom it was a task of little hope to 
try to rouse them. 


Ethel Parton. 



EACH AND ALL. 


THE STORY OF AGOONACK AND HER 
SAIL UPON THE ICE ISLAND. 

Do you remember Agoonack, the little 
Esquimau girl who lived through the long 
sunshine and the long darkness ? 

I have had news of her lately. Do you 
want to know what it is Then come with 
me once more to the cold countries and 
visit our old acquaintances, the seals and 
the bears, and the chubby little girl and her 
baby brother. 

It is an April day. If we were at home 
we should perhaps hear a bluebird sing. 
There would be swelling leaf-buds on the 
lilac and the horse-chestnut trees, and little 
green tufts of grass pushing up here and 
there in sunny spots, and out in the pine 


2 


Each and A IL 


woods I am sure we should find mayflowers. 
But in the far-away cold countries there are 
no such pleasant signs of spring; and yet 
there are some things that are very cheering 
to the people who live there. Best of all, 
there is the sun, that has come back again 
after the long night and gives them now a 
short day, just a few hours long. Then 
Puseymut the seal, who knows that the 
spring is coming, has begun to build her 
curious house. And about these seal houses 
I must tell you, for they are almost as curi- 
ous and pretty as a bird’s nest. 

You know the seals live in the water. 
And here the water is all covered with ice 
— ice as thick as you are tall, little Edith, 
and in some places very much thicker. 
And on the top of the ice there is deep, 
deep snow. Now, of what can the seal 
build her house 

Ah ! you merry children who build snow 
houses in winter know very well of what it 
is built. See, I will make you a picture of 
it, and the mother seal swimming in the 
clear water just below. Here is the passage- 


The Story of Agoonack. 3 

way or entry, cut through the clear, hard 
ice. To make that was difficult work for 
the mother seal, but she did it all herself. 
See what a little doorway leads into the 



walls are of snow. It is shaped just like 
an Esquimau house. Indeed, I have some- 
times thought that the Esquimaux learned 
of the seals how to make their houses. It 
is hardly big enough, you will say, for the 


4 


Each and A It. 


mother seal to live in. No, she did n’t build 
it for herself. She can swim about wher- 
ever she likes, come up to some little hole 
in the ice for an occasional breath of fresh 
air, creep out and sun herself if the day is 
warm ; and, in short, she does n’t seem to 
need a house for herself. 

For whom, then, is the little house ? 
Georgie thinks it must be for her baby. 
And Georgie is’ right; for in that pretty, 
round house lies a little white baby seal, with 
soft hazel eyes and tiny little flippers hardly 
big enough to swim with as yet. And she 
lies there so snugly while the mother goes 
away for food, and gives a little call of wel- 
come when she hears her coming up the ice 
entry that leads to the door. 

On this April day Agoonack has on her 
bearskin jumper and hood, and runs out on 
the snow beside her father, who carries his 
long spear in his hand. The sun is up and 
sends level rays across the ice, and makes 
the little girl think of warmth, although, if 
she had a thermometer, she would see that 
it stands at -30°; and that is colder than 


5 


The Story of Agoonack. 

you have ever known it to be. She trots 
briskly along beside her father, until with 
a sudden “Hush!” and touch of his hand 
on her shoulder he stops the child in the 
shelter of a great iceberg, and, running 
swiftly forward, with a sudden jump he 
breaks through the snow crust, and has 
come crashing down into the pretty seal 
igloe, and seized the baby seal. The poor 
little thing is so taken by surprise that it 
can only utter a plaintive cry, which the 
mother, swimming off in the clear water 
under the ice, hears instantly, and she 
hastens, as any mother would, to help her 
poor child. 

Metek knows she will come, and he is 
ready. Her smooth, round head and mild 
eyes have scarcely appeared above the ice, 
when she is struck by his spear and drawn 
out through the hole. And now she will 
furnish meat for dinner, oil for the lamp, 
and boots for the men. 

I think you would n’t like to see all this ; 
it would be too painful. But Agoonack is 
used to it, and she knows besides, that, if 


6 


Each and A IL 


they catch no seals, they will have nothing 
to eat; and hunger is to her as painful as 
is death to this poor seal. 

Do you remember where her father 
stopped her while he ran forward to the 
seal igloe } 

It was in the shelter of an iceberg, 
was n’t it, Dossie } 

Now, if he had known something about 
the iceberg, I am sure he would never have 
left his little daughter there alone ; indeed, 
I think he would n’t have liked to stop there 
very long himself. Creep with me round 
to the other side of the berg and up the 
slippery slope a little way. Here is a nar- 
row opening in the ice. It is like the 
mouth of a little cave. Look in and see 
the beautiful, clear, blue ice walls of this 
crystal room. If we had come an hour 
ago I believe you would have been ready 
to turn and run quickly away, without stop- 
ping to see that this is Mother Bruin’s 
nursery, and she and her two children were 
at play in it. 

“ But who is Mother Bruin } ” 


7 


The Story of Agoonack, 

Why, don’t you know ? she is the great 
white bear, Nannook, as Agoonack calls 
her. And, although she would be a very 
surly creature if we should meet her on 
the ice, at home here in the crystal nursery 
she plays with the two cubs, rolls them 
over with her paw, pats them, and cuddles 
and hugs them as tenderly in her rough 
way as your mother does you. And some- 
times she takes them out sliding down the 
steep snow hills, sitting on their hind legs, 
and steering down, after a good coasting 
place has been worn by their mamma. You 
see, they have their little family pleasures. 
I wish we might be friends with them, but, 
unfortunately, they know very well that 
Metek would rejoice to have their flesh for 
meat, and their warm, shaggy skins for 
clothes, so they return the compliment 
and kill him if they can. And now you 
see why he would n’t have left Agoonack 
there if he had known. But, fortunately 
for the child. Mamma Bruin had taken little 
Hugger and Growler out for a walk just at 
that time, and she did not return until the 


8 


Each and A IL 


child and her father were safe at home, and 
drinking seal’s-blood soup for supper. 

They have company, too, at supper to- 
night; not that it is at all surprising for 
them to have company, for any hunter who 
has killed a seal never keeps it all to him- 
self, but is always kind enough to invite his 
neighbors to share his feast. But to-night 
they have a rare and wonderful visitor — 
Kudlunah, Metek calls him ; and, if we 
knew the Esquimau language, we should 
understand that this queer word means 
“white man.” 

Never has Agoonack or little Sipsu seen 
such a man. His cheeks are red, his eyes 
are bright, and he has a curly beard ; his 
voice is very pleasant, and he can speak a 
few words of their own language. And out 
of his pockets come treasures such as the 
little ones have never dreamed of. The 
shy little girl can hardly look up and say 
“ Thank you ” when he puts a string of bright 
beads round her neck ; and her father grunts 
out his satisfaction over a knife, the best thine 
to cut with that he ever saw in his life. 


9 


The Story of Agoonack. 

But where did this white man come from ? 
Ah, yes ! that is the greatest wonder, after 
all ; for he points far away to the south to show 
where his home is, and he says “oomiak” 
(ship), when they wonder how he came so far. 
To-night he will sleep in their hut, and to- 
morrow, if they will go with him, he will show 
them his great oomiak. And so, when the 
seal feast is finished and the Kudlunah, as 
well as the rest, has drunk his bowl of seal’s- 
blood soup, they lie down together. 

In the morning Metek goes with the 
stranger, but the others stay at home, 
doubting whether it can be perfectly safe 
to trust themselves in such company upon 
so short an acquaintance. But Agoonack 
thinks all day of the wonderful Kudlunah, 
and she plays with her pretty beads, and 
says over and over again softly to herself 
“ Koyenna, koyenna ” (thanks, thanks). 
And she is the first one to see her father 
far in the distance, a black speck on the 
moonlit snow, as he trudges homeward with 
his hands full of presents and his head full 
of strange and marvellous news, 


lO 


Each and A 11. 


You know it doesn’t make much differ- 
ence to the Esquimaux whether they sit up 
late or not, for the sunrise could hardly be 
called the beginning of day at any time of 
year ; and, sleep as late as they might in the 
morning, nobody would cry : “ What a shame 
that the sun should find you in bed ! ” 

So this evening even little Sipsu cuddles 
forgotten behind his mother, and listens 
with wide-open mouth and eyes to the story 
of the great oomiak built all of wood — 
wood which you remember is so precious 
in the Esquimau land — and as big as a 
hundred kyaks. It is filled with pale-faced, 
shaggy-bearded Kudlunahs, plenty of knives, 
and, better than that, strange weapons, 
stronger than spears, for out of them flashes 
fire, and a seal will be struck dead with the 
terrible noise that follows that flash. 

Oh, that was a marvellous story ! Agoo- 
nack could hardly believe it ; but she learned 
by and by to be very familiar with the guns 
and pistols, and very thankful for them, too. 
You will see pretty soon how that came 
about, for before a week has passed even 


The Story of Agoonack. 1 1 

the little girl herself has been on board the 
great oomiak, and tasted the Kudlunahs’ 
food, a ship biscuit, as strange and unknown 
to her as seal’s-blood soup to you. Think 
how funny it would be to taste for the first 
time bread or cracker ! 

The child’s mother, too, is made very 
happy when she receives needles and thread 
(so much better than her bone needles and 
seal sinews) and a good pair of scissors, as 
payment for the bag of eider down that she 
gathered last summer when the ducks came 
to make their nests among the rocks. The 
exchange of these things as presents or in 
trade shows them that the white men and the 
Esquimaux can serve each other, and awakens 
a very friendly feeling between them; and 
when Metek kills a seal or a bear the white 
captain is always welcome at the feast. 

When two or three months have passed, 
the Kudlunahs are going away. They have 
only stopped for a little while, to search 
along the rocky shores for traces of some 
lost friends of theirs who sailed that way 
many years ago, and, finding none here. 


12 


Each and All. 


they will push on through the icy seas, 
hoping for better success farther north. 

One day just before they started, Metek 
was called down into the cabin of the ship 
to see the captain, and when he came up 
it was with a smile on his broad face, and a 
look of great importance which made him 
hold his head very high. What had the 
captain been saying to him 't 

“ Metek,” he said, “you are a good hunter. 
Will you go with us on this voyage to kill 
seals and walruses for us ? I will teach you 
to shoot, and give you a rifle ; and you shall 
be paid with knives, guns, powder, and 
shot.” 

Then Metek answered : “ I will go with 
the great captain, but I cannot leave my wife 
and children behind. How could they live 
alone 1 They cannot hunt ; they would die 
of hunger.” 

Then the captain sat silent and thought- 
ful for a minute or two, and at last, seeing 
that what Metek had spoken was plainly 
true, he answered: “Bring your wife and 
children with you.” It was this that made 


3 


The Story of Agoonack. 

Metek so proud and happy, and he hurried 
home with his news. 

Ah! now they must break up house- 
keeping; but that is an easy thing, easier 
even than for Gemila in the desert, for her 
father had mats and tents, and camels and 
goats, and water bags. But Metek’s family 
had nothing at all to carry, except a seal- 
skin drinking cup, a knife or two, the pre- 
cious new sewing utensils, some strings of 
beads, the clothes they wear, and one addi- 
tional suit for summer, which the mother 
has just sewed out of tuktoo, or reindeer 
skin. So it is a very easy matter to make 
the change, and the berth of the ship is a 
luxurious bed for Sipsu and Agoonack. 

I can’t tell you all the wonderful things 
that happened for the next few months, while 
the great oomiak, after pushing through the 
icy sea as far as it could go, was at last 
frozen fast among the great ice floes; or 
how Metek learned so well to shoot the seals 
and the bears, and provide fresh meat for the 
whole ship’s company. 

But we are coming to a very important 


Each and AIL 


14 

time — a time when the ice begins to break 
up, and, tossed by the rising and falling 
tides, it crowds and crushes the strong ship. 
And at last one night, dark and very stormy 
too, while the children, who are so used to 
the thumping and tossing, are asleep rolled 
up in bearskins, a great shout is heard 
through the storm ; the ship is leaking 
badly, and they must throw out upon the 
ice as many things as possible. 

The barrels and casks, the bundles of 
skins, and the heavy boats are soon upon the 
floe ; and in the hurry and confusion some- 
body picks up the roll of skins in which the 
children are sleeping, and they are tossed 
out like any other bundle. 

When at last the dim morning dawns, 
behold, the ship has drifted away, and left 
upon the great cake of floating ice a party 
of fifteen men, besides Metek and his wife, 
and the two little children who have crept 
out of their nest of skins and are neither 
surprised nor frightened at finding them- 
selves in this strange position. 

Think of it, children. How would you 


15 


The Story of Agoonack. 

like it ? — a great cake of ice two or three 
miles broad, almost like a floating island. 
When the days are warm enough to thaw 
a little, it moves with the moving water, 
and freezes hard to the land or the icebergs 
when a cold snap comes. 

I believe you and I should be very much 
troubled about it, and I dare say the captain 
felt very anxious, but he did not say so ; he 
tried to be cheerful and hopeful, and plan 
what to do. 

In some ways it is not so bad, you see, 
because if they are floating in the water 
they will meet both seals and walruses, and 
can get something to eat. And there is 
another good thing to remember — they are 
drifting always southward, and that takes 
them towards warmer seas, towards home 
— at least, towards the Kudlunah’s home. 
But the way is long, and the ice boat may 
not sail always steadily on as they would 
like. You know they cannot steer it as 
men do a ship, or even as you do your 
sled. They must patiently let it take its 
own way and its own time ; and what are 


1 6 Each and AIL 

they to do for shelter and for fire, even if 
food is plenty? 

I think the Kudlunahs would have been 
poorly off, although they are so wise, if it 
hadn’t been for Esquimau Metek then. 
See how he goes promptly to work to build 
snow houses — igloes he calls them. The 
ice floor is cold, to be sure, and the plat- 
form of ice raised at one side for a bed 
seems colder still when you lie down. But 
there are two old canvas sails that will 
serve for carpets, and in a few hours the 
arched snow walls are finished, so high in 
the middle that the captain himself can 
stand upright ; and a window one foot 
square of clear ice lets in light enough to 
see each other by, even when the seal- 
blubber lamp is not burning. There is a 
home for them, and a pretty comfortable 
home too, they think. But it is now the 
middle of October, and winter is coming. 
To be sure, they have casks of pemican 
and some barrels of biscuits, but it takes a 
great deal of food to feed nineteen hungry 
people every day ; and in the cold countries 


The Story of Agoonack. 


17 


you have to eat a great deal more than we 
do here. Food, as you will one day learn, 
is like fuel for a little fire inside of you that 
keeps you warm, and, the colder the weather 
is, the more of that fuel is needed to keep 
the fire burning. 

Metek must hunt every day for seals. 
Unfortunately it is just the time when the 
bears are taking their long nap ; for you 
must know that they are very lazy fellows 
in the winter, and creep away to some snug 
hiding place, where they doze and dream 
until early spring. It would n’t be easy to 
find that hiding place, so they can’t expect 
much bear’s meat. 

There is another reason why they dread 
the winter. Who can tell me what it is t 

“ It must be the darkness,” says Dadie. 
You are right, my little boy ; that is what 
they dread, and what you and I should 
dread too — not to see the sun day after 
day and week after week, perhaps not even 
to see each other’s faces. 

“But why don’t they light their lamps 
says Edith. Ah ! there may be a sad reason 


1 8 Each and AIL 

for not doing that. Don’t you remember 
that if no seals are killed there will be no 
oil for the lamps 

I cannot tell you all about it ; the story is 
too long and too sad. You see what the 
dangers are, but neither you nor I, who live 
so safely at home in our warm houses, and 
find a good dinner on our tables every day, 
can really understand how hard it was for 
them. There were days of no light, no din- 
ner, no comfort of any kind. There were 
nights when the ice island cracked in two, 
and one-half drifted away before morning. 
There were times when the children moaned, 
“ I am so hungry,” and their mother gave 
them a little piece of sealskin to chew to 
make believe it was meat. 

Among the Kudlunahs was one who had 
blue eyes and fair hair, and who spoke 
sometimes in a language strange even to 
his companions. He had come from the 
river Rhine. Do you remember Louise and 
Fritz and little Gretchen, who once lived 
there ? 

This man had a wise way of looking at the 


19 


The Story of Agoonack. 

stars and finding out by them in what direc- 
tion the ice island was drifting. He could 
also tell you wonderful things about ice- 
bergs, and about birds and beasts, and fishes 
too ; in short, he was what we should call a 
scientific man, but that hard word did n’t 
puzzle Agoonack as it does you, for she had 
never heard it. Her only knowledge of Mr. 
Meyer is his kindness to her when he one 
day slips a bit of meat into her thin little 
hand and says : “ My little cousin at home 
is no bigger than you, you poor child.” 

At last there was a time when the sun 
came back. Oh, how glad they all were ! 
But even that blessing seemed to bring a 
fresh trouble with it, for they had floated 
now into warmer seas, and you all know 
what the sunshine will do to the .ice and 
snow. It is very well that they should be 
melted, we say; but then, we don’t happen 
to live on an ice island and in a snow 
house. 

By and by the time comes when it is no 
longer safe to sleep in the snow houses. 
Cold as the nights are, they must be ready 


20 


Each a7id All, 


at any minute to leap into the boat, should 
the now tiny island crack in two. And the 
poor boat is neither large nor strong. 

They have drifted now so far southward 
that the ice is breaking up all about them, 
and, happily for them, the seals are sporting 
in the spring sunshine. 

It is the last day of April. To-morrow 
will be May Day. You will have May fairs. 
May parties. May flowers. What pleasure 
will come to these poor people drifting in 
the icy seas } Oh ! it is something better 
than May fairs, or parties, or even flowers. 
They see the long black line of smoke made 
by a steamer, miles away, but coming on 
slowly, steadily, through the ice, to find 
them. Isn’t that the very, very best bless- 
ing for them } And are n’t you very, very 
glad } I am sure that I am. 

Oh, the comfort, the rest, and the safety ! 
And the way that sturdy little steamer puffs 
and steams away towards home, with her load 
of weary, thin, worn-out men ! Towards home, 
did I say } But have n’t they drifted far 
beyond Agoonack’s home, and now are n’t 


The Story of Agooitack. 21 

they going still farther from it ? That is 
true. And, after the first relief of finding 
themselves safe is over, Metek goes to the 
Nalegak Soak (great captain) and asks how 
he is ever to reach his home again. And 
the captain comforts him with the promise 
that, when they reach the United States, he 
shall be sent safely back in the first ship that 
goes up to the frozen seas for whale fishing ; 
and in the meantime he and his wife and 
children will see a new sight — whole cities 
full of tall houses built of stone or wood, rail- 
roads and factories, and, indeed, more won- 
ders than they can name. 

But all this while they are steaming stead- 
ily on. They have left the icebergs far 
behind them; grassy shores are sometimes 
seen in the distance ; the sun is so hot at 
noon that the fur clothing is uncomfortable, 
but, unhappily, they have no other. 

At last comes a day when they cast anchor 
at a crowded wharf. The news of their res- 
cue had been sent before them, and friends 
have crowded down to welcome them home 
again. Oh, there is such a hand-shaking 


22 


Each and AIL 


and kissing! Everybody forgets Agoonack 
and Sipsu, who do not know what to make 
of all the happy greetings. At least, they 
can understand how glad the people are ; 
that is something that can be told alike in 
all languages. But it makes them feel all the 
more lonely, for nobody is glad to see them. 

But what little blue-eyed girl has her arms 
about Mr. Meyer’s neck.? Now see, he is 
leading her by the hand and looking on this 
side and on that until he spies the little 
Esquimau girl in her corner. He puts the 
soft white hand into the little brown one 
and says : “ Louise, this is Agoonack, the 
little girl who has drifted with us fifteen 
hundred miles on the ice.” 

Louise, the fair-faced, sweet, clean little 
girl ; Agoonack, the dark and dirty — yes, 
still dirty — little Esquimau, the lonely little 
stranger in a strange land. 

Louise looks her full in the face for one 
minute, then her arms are round Agoo- 
nack’s neck, and her red lips are giving 
her a hearty kiss of welcome. 

They are little sisters, after all. 






A LONG JOURNEY THROUGH A 
STRANGE LAND. 

Who is this little girl sitting on the sand 
bank in the broad valley where a few months 
ago a swift river ran ? 

Let us see what she is doing, and then 
perhaps you will know who she is. 

She has brought a bundle of tall reeds 
from the bank and laid them beside her ; 
and now notice how, with her flat palm, she 
smooths a broad place on the sand and 
begins to drive in the reeds like posts, close 
together and in a circle. Is n’t it going to 
be a little garden with a fence all around 
it? Watch a minute longer; she is plaster- 
ing her wall with damp clay, and while that 
dries she has carefully measured off a bundle 
of broad, stiff leaves, tied them firmly to- 
gether at one end, and with her strong 
fingers pulled them wide apart at the other, 
so that they look like an open umbrella. 

23 


24 


Each and AIL 


Do you know what that is for? It is a 
roof, to be sure. And now she puts it care- 
fully on top of the circular wall, and then 
she has a pretty little round house with 
a pointed roof ; and you notice she left a 
doorway in the first place. 

“ Why, it is Manenko ! ” says Dossie. 

Yes, it is Manenko, the little dark girl 
who lived in the sunshine. She is building 
a playhouse for herself, and you might build 
one like it next summer, I think, if you 
should try. 

You knew her by the kind of house, 
did n’t you ? And you would have remem- 
bered her in a minute more, when I had 
told you that her little brother Shobo is sit- 
ting beside her, trying to make a tiny spear 
with a sharp barbed end, out of one of her 
best reeds. 

A great trouble has come to Manenko’s 
country since you first knew her. You re- 
member the broad river where the hippo- 
potamus used to sleep under the water, and 
where the men used to come down in a 
canoe loaded with elephants’ tusks. That 


25 


A Long Journey, 

beautiful, cool, swift-flowing river has dried 
up, and our little Manenko is at this moment 
building her playhouse in the very place 
where the waves used to dance along over 
the sandy bottom. 

But why is this a great trouble? I will 
answer this question by asking you another. 
Who can live without water to drink ? And 
the simple round houses have no water 
pipes, and the one well of the village is 
already almost dry. The women are hold- 
ing up their hands to the sky, and crying, 
“ Poola, poola ! ” (rain, rain !) but the sky is 
blue and clear, and not the smallest fleecy 
cloud answers their call ; and the men have 
gone to the next village to ask the old 
medicine man to come and make rain for 
them, which you and I know very well he 
will not be able to do. So this is really a 
serious trouble, is n’t it ? 

Sekomi has been thoughtful for many 
days. He has watched the sky, he has 
looked sadly at the dry bed of the river; 
and now a morning has come when there 
seems no longer any hope, and he says: 


26 


Each and All, 


“ Where shall we drink water to-night ? ” 

But Maunka, the good mother, is more 
cheerful. “ Let us go to the mountain 
country,” she says. “ Do you not see that 
the river once ran down to us from the 
mountains There we shall find springs 
and wells, build a new house, and live as 
happily as we have here.” 

I am sure, dear children, that you will 
think this good advice, for you all know 
that the rivers come from the mountain . 
springs. 

And so this whole family prepared to go 
on a long journey through a strange land. 

Perhaps some of you know what it is to 
move. We moved once when I was a little 
girl, and there were great wagons to carry 
the furniture, and men to load and unload 
them. It was a long and wearisome busi- 
ness, I assure you. 

Now we will see how Manenko’s family 
move. There are no horses and wagons 
to carry anything, but they march on foot, 
single file, and carry all the baggage them- 
selves. First the father with his spear and 




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A Long Journey, 27 

shield, bow and arrows, slung over his 
shoulders. Then Zungo, the oldest son; 
he, too, carries bow and spear, and also a 
load of sleeping-mats tied together with 
rope made of palm fibre. Then follows the 
mother. I hope some good children are 
carrying all her bundles for her. But no; 
see, she has the heaviest load of all. On 
her head is the water jar, over her shoulders 
all the family clothing and cooking utensils, 
and in her hands the baskets and the short 
hoes for hoeing corn. And more than all, 
in the loose folds of her waist-cloth little 
Shobo must ride when he is tired, some- 
thing as Agoonack’s little brother Sipsu 
rode in his mother’s jumper-hood. 

Why did n’t Manenko carry some of these 
things for her mother.?^ Only look at the 
little girl, and you will be able to answer 
the question. She, too, has a little water 
jar on her head (and I think she carries it 
more safely Than any one of you could do), 
and a basket of hard cakes, baked in the 
ashes of the morning’s fire, in her hand. 
A smaller basket of honey is slung over 


28 Each and, AIL 

her shoulder, and all that is load enough for 
a little girl. 

If you ask why Sekomi and Zungo do not 
carry more, I can only answer that I am 
afraid they are not very thoughtful about 
such things. However, nobody complains, 
least of all the cheerful mother, who takes 
up her burdens without a word ; and they 
turn their faces towards the hill country. 

The first day’s march is not so very hard 
if it were not for that thicket of wait-a-bit 
thorn bushes past which the path led them. 

Did you ever hear of the wait-a-bit thorn } 
It tells its whole story in its name, for the 
thorns are like little fish hooks, and, if once 
they catch you, you must needs wait a bit 
before you can get away. I am glad they 
don’t grow in this country. To-day they 
tore long slits in Manenko’s little cotton 
skirt, the first and only garment that she 
ever had, and she had only worn it a few 
weeks ; you remember when you knew her 
before, she did not wear clothes. I am sorry 
the wait-a-bit has served her so unkindly, for 
there is no cloth to make a new dress. 


A Long Journey, 


29 


Just before sunset they find a pool of 
muddy water, and on its borders great 
heavy footmarks where the elephants have 
been down to drink. This will be a good 
camping place if they keep out of the ele- 
phants’ path, for the water jars are empty, 
and here is a new supply to fill them for 
to-morrow, and also to make some porridge 
for supper. So the children gather sticks 
for a fire, and Sekomi selects a sheltered 
spot for the camp. But how shall they 
light the fire } Do you think Sekomi has 
any matches in his pocket.^ In the first 
place, he has n’t any pocket ; and in the 
second, they never heard of such a thing 
as a match — a little stick with a fiery end; 
they would look at it with wonder. No, 
there are no matches, but Zungo will light 
the fire, nevertheless. 

He is looking about for a wild fig tree. 
Finding one, he cuts a smooth twig, sharpens 
it into a point, and, after wetting the point, 
rolls it in the sand until some of the sharp, 
shining bits stick to the wet end. Now it 
is all ready for rubbing or twirling in the 


30 


Each and AIL 


hollow of that piece of wood that he has 
carried all day slung to his bundle of mats. 
How hard he works, holding the pointed 
stick straight in the hole, and twirling it 
hard between his two hands, while his 
mother waits beside him to catch the first 
spark in a wisp of dried grass ! There, it is 
smoking, and now the grass is smouldering, 
and in a minute there will be a merry blaze 
under the earthen chattie where the por- 
ridge is to be cooked. 

But before the porridge is well boiled a 
long train of men and animals comes crash- 
ing through the low bushes, and, while the 
frightened family hides behind a rock, Se- 
komi comes doubtfully forward to see who 
the intruders are. 

Two tall creatures with long necks, great 
humps on their backs, and loaded with bales 
and bundles of goods ; four little sturdy ani- 
mals, not wholly unlike zebras excepting in 
color; and, besides the six men with woolly 
hair and dark faces like Sekomi’s own, two 
tall, grave-faced, straight-haired men whom 
you would have known at once for Arabs, 


A Long Journey. 


31 


because you have heard about such people 
who lived in the desert with Gemila. But 
the greatest wonder of all is the man who 
rides upon one of the smaller animals — a 
white man ! Sekomi has heard that such 
men come sometimes to the seacoast, but 
he never before saw one ; and so, while he 
wonders much at the camels and the don- 
keys, strange beasts to him, he wonders 
still more at a simple man who is in every 
outward way as different from himself as 
possible. He has a white skin instead of 
a dark one, straight hair instead of wool, 
blue eyes instead of black, and he wears 
instead of the simple apron and mantle 
of antelope skin, strange garments, so well 
known to us as coat and pantaloons. But 
the words that he speaks are the most 
wonderful ; and yet Sekomi knows by their 
sound that they are kind, although he can- 
not understand their meaning until one of 
the black interpreters hurries forward to 
help about the talking. 

Do you know what an interpreter is } See 
what he does, and then you will know. He 


32 


Each and AIL 


listens to the white man’s talk, and then he 
changes it into Sekomi’s language, and so 
makes them understand each other. Do 
you want to hear what the white man says 
to Sekomi? 

“We have the same kind heavenly Father. 
Let us be friends and like brothers.” 

But Sekomi is afraid. He can hardly be- 
lieve it, and he answers : 

“ It cannot be so ; however much we wash 
ourselves, we do not become white. It can- 
not be that I have the same Father as 
Bazungu ” (white man). 

Then the Bazungu speaks again in his 
kindly voice and says : “ It is not the skin 
that makes us brothers ; it is the heart.” 

And now Sekomi dares to cpme forward 
and touch the hand that is held out to him 
in kindness, and clap his own as an act of 
politeness. “ And, since we are brothers, 
my wife will give you porridge.” 

The Bazungu is tired and hungry, and 
the porridge is hot and delicious, but before 
eating it he gives Sekomi a piece of bright- 
colored cloth from one of his bales, and he 


A Long Journey, 


33 


also calls Manenko and puts a string of red 
and blue beads round her neck. The child 
says timidly, “ Motota, motota ” (thanks), 
and claps her hands as her mother has 
taught her, for it would be very bad man- 
ners not to clap your hands if any one gave 
you a present. 

The white man wants help, for one of his 
camels is sick and tired and cannot carry 
so great a load ; and to-morrow morning 
the packages must be divided, and the 
men must carry a part of them. He will 
be glad of Sekomi’s help and will pay him 
one yard of calico a day. That is a great 
price, and as Sekomi was going in the 
same direction, he is very glad to earn 
so much calico by carrying one of the 
bales. 

Do you wonder why he is n’t paid in 
money He knows nothing about money. 
In his country cloth and ivory and beads 
are used instead, and a yard of calico is as 
good as a dollar. 

So the bargain is made, and the wages 
agreed upon, and then the camp fires are 


34 


Each and AIL 


lighted to frighten away the lions, and all 
lie down to sleep. 

You would be surprised to see this fire. 
We all know what a bright wood fire is, but 
what should you think of a fire of ebony, 
that fine black wood of which the piano 
keys are made, and perhaps a stick of ma- 
hogany or lignum-vitae added to it ? That 
is all the wood they can find to burn, and 
although the white man knows that it is 
fine enough to be made into beautiful tables, 
or desks, or pianos, the black people think 
it of no value except for their fires. 

In the side of the hill half a mile away is 
a broad belt of black rock. It is coal, just 
such coal as we burn in our grate, but when 
the Bazungu shows it to his men and tells 
them that it will make a hot fire, they 
smile, and say, “Kodi” (really.^), for they 
don’t believe it. 

Very early in the morning Manenko hears 
her mother rise quietly and take her grind- 
ing stone, and begin to grind some corn 
into flour. “ Mother, why grind in the 
dark ? ” asks the child. 


A Long Journey, 35 

“ I grind meal to buy a cloth from the 
stranger, and make you a little dress,” 
answers the mother; and sure enough, 
when the Bazungu comes out of his tent 
at sunrise Maunka stands waiting with her 
basket of fresh meal, and he gladly buys it 
and gives the cloth. So the poor dress torn 
by the wait-a-bit is replaced. 

They are soon ready for the march. Se- 
komi now carries a great bale of cloth, and 
Zungo, too, has been employed to attend to 
the white man’s fires when they camp at 
night. For this work he is to have a 
strange kind of pay, stranger even than 
the cloth ; it is the heads and necks of all 
the animals that the white man may shoot 
on the way. If he should shoot a rhinoceros, 
I think there would be meat enough in his 
head to last the whole family several days, 
but a little antelope’s head would be only 
enough for one dinner. At any rate, it is 
a great help to them all to have this work 
and this pay from the friendly stranger, and 
they are ready to serve him in every way 
that they can. 


36 


Each and A ll. 


As they come near a village, they hear 
the, people shouting, “ Malonda, malonda ! ” 
(Things for sale ; do you want to sell any 
thing?) and they find themselves just in 
time to go to a market, which is being 
held in the middle of the town. 

Let us see what they have to sell. Here 
is the blacksmith who has a forge on the 
top of yonder ant-hill. He has been mak- 
ing short-handled iron hoes and will sell 
them for cloth or for honey, and honey is 
very cheap — a whole gallon for one yard of 
cloth. 

See these two nice girls with clean hands 
and faces, and neat baskets full of some- 
thing to eat. It looks very good, but I am 
afraid you won’t buy any when I tell you 
that it is roasted white ants. But I don’t 
know why we shouldn’t find it as agreeable 
as a kungo cake that the women who live 
by the lake have for sale, for a kungo cake 
is a round, flat cake, an inch thick and as 
large as a breakfast plate, made entirely of 
boiled midges that are caught by the basket- 
ful as they hover over the lake. 


A Long Journey, 37 

We will not buy either, but will give that 
little naked girl a blue bead in payment for 
a cup of fresh water, and then sit down in 
the shade of a wild fig tree to watch the 
others. Zungo has sold a spearhead, and has 
in return some large, green, bitter melons. 
They are too bitter to be eaten raw, but 
will be very juicy and sweet when baked 
in the ashes. Sekomi has spent all his 
cloth for an ornament of ivory shaped like 
a new moon, and he marches about the 
town with it hanging round his neck, with 
one horn over each shoulder. 

There is one kind of food here that per- 
haps we shall like. It is a sort of soup 
made out of the blossoms of a pretty blue 
flowering pea. The people call it “chilobe,” 
and when they learn that the white man 
never saw it before they exclaim : “ What 
a wretched country you must live in, if 
you do not even have chilobe ! ” But you 
and I know that they haven’t the least 
idea how many other good things we have 
instead. 

On one side of the market place stand 


38 


Each and A IL 


some men curiously marked on their backs, 
shoulders, and arms. They are covered 
with patterns pricked into their skins — 
tattooed we should call it. There are 
crosses and half-moons, and various other 
figures ; and all the men of one family have 
the same sort of mark, so that you can tell, 
the minute you see one of them, whether 
he is a moon-man or a cross-man. They 
have brought salt to sell, for they live in 
a place where the very earth tastes salt, 
and if you take some of it and wash it 
carefully, you can wash out little crystals 
of clear white salt. 

The Bazungu has bought a pot of fresh 
butter, and when he eats his supper that 
evening the black people look on with sur- 
prise to see him eat butter raw, spread on 
his bread ; and Maunka offers to melt it 
for him, that he may dip his bread into it. 
That is the way she would eat it. 

And now I must tell you something 
about the new country into which they 
are coming. Already they have met little 
rivers coming down from the mountains. 


A Long Journey. 


39 


and the plains are covered with tall grass, 
tall enough for tall men to play hide-and- 
seek in ; and the buffalo and rhinoceros are 
roaming there, thinking themselves safely 
hidden from hunters. 

There is need of meat in the camp, and 
Bazungu plans a great hunt. The men 
take their bows and spears, but the white 
man has a “gun with six mouths, and the 
balls travel far and hit hard.” I suppose 
we should call it a six-barrel revolver. 

They leave the camp early one morning, 
and as they will not return for two days the 
men carry their “ fumbas,” or sleeping bags 
of palm leaves, and the little mosamela, or 
carved wooden pillow, hung over their 
shoulders. 

First they shoot a zebra, which they 
think gives “ the king of good meat.” But 
the buffalo and rhinoceros are not so easy 
to approach, for each is guarded by a watch- 
ful little bird sitting on its back and looking 
out for danger. No sooner do the faith- 
ful little sentinels catch a glimpse of spear 
or bow than the buffalo bird calls out. 


40 


Each and AIL 


“ Cha, cha, cha ! ” and the rhinoceros bird, 
“ Tye, tye, tye ! ” as much as to say to their 
clumsy friends, in their own pretty language, 
“ Scamper, scamper, quick, quick ! ” and 
away gallop the great creatures, and it is 
no easy matter to overtake them. 

But there is always something to be had 
for dinner, when all else fails. You know 
the guinea hens with speckled backs, and 
their funny call, “ Come back, come back ! ” 
We see a few of them here, but in Manen- 
ko’s land they are very common — hundreds 
and thousands of them to be found every- 
where, and our hunters can have roasted or 
boiled guinea hen, if nothing else ; only, in 
that case, poor Zungo will fare badly, for 
the heads and necks are his, and very small 
indeed they are as payment for cutting the 
hard lignum-vitae and ebony for the fire- 
wood. The good Bazungu, however, is kind 
and thoughtful, and sometimes gives him 
a whole fowl for dinner. 

On the second day they kill two great 
buffalo, and as they cannot carry all the 
meat at once to camp, a part has to be left 


A Long Journey, • 41 

among the bushes. When they go back 
for it they hear a low growling, and, ap- 
proaching cautiously, see a great lion tear- 
ing the buffalo flesh and eating it as fast 
as he can. Oh, what a pity, after all their 
trouble in hunting ! And Sekomi calls out 
boldly to the lion : “ Why don’t you kill 
your own beef.^ Are you a chief, and so 
mean as to steal what other people have 
killed ? ” For Sekomi believes that some 
chiefs have the power of turning themselves 
into lions, just as people do in fairy stories, 
and he thinks this lion is really a man and 
can understand what he says. But the lion 
does not heed him ; he only growls and 
goes on with his meal, and the buffalo meat 
is lost. 

The white man cannot wait many days 
for hunting, because he is on his way to 
visit a great lake of which he has heard, 
and to look for the source of a long river 
of which you will know more some day. 
So they are soon on the march again, and 
the days are growing warmer and warmer, 
for it is midsummer in that country. Mid- 


42 


Each and A IL 


summer, did I say? It is just the 25th of 
December, and do you know what day that 
is ? “ Christmas Day ! ” you all exclaim. 

Yes, it is Christmas Day; and the birds 
are singing, the corn is springing up, and 
the fields are full of gay flowers. 

You all know the little humrhing birds 
that you see dipping into the flowers on a 
summer day. In Manenko’s land there are 
not many humming birds, but tiny sun birds 
instead, no bigger than a great bumblebee, 
and fluttering on swift-fanning wings over 
the pomegranate flowers. The little weaver 
birds, too, have put off their winter clothes 
of sober brown, and are gayly dressed in 
scarlet and black velvet. And here is one 
little red-throated bird who has put on a 
long train for summer wear, and finds it as 
difficult to fly about with it as some ladies 
do to walk with theirs. 

I wish you could see the goat-sucker bird 
that Zungo caught and brought into camp 
on Christmas Day. He might have fob 
lowed it all day long, a month ago, and yet 
have come home empty-handed ; but the 


A Long Journey. 


43 


vain little bird is now dressed with two very- 
long feathers (as long as your arm) growing 
out of each wing, and trailing so heavily 
that, although at other times he flies too 
swiftly for any one to catch him, he is now 
slow and clumsy, and Zungo caught him 
without trouble. 

In spite of the hunting there is great 
need of meat in the camp, and some of 
the men are sick and cannot travel any 
farther. 

You may wonder why they can’t buy 
meat, as we do, of the butcher, but, besides 
the fact that there is no butcher, there is 
another great objection — there is no meat. 
There are neither sheep nor oxen in this 
part of the country, for the enemy has 
driven them all away. 

“ What enemy,” do you ask ? 

A little enemy not a thousandth part as 
large as an ox, black and yellow in color, 
and carrying a very sharp and dangerous 
weapon. His name is tsetse, and he is a 
terrible fly. He bites the oxen and the 
sheep, and they sicken and in a few days 


44 


Each and AIL 


die. And so determined is this fierce little 
enemy that no sheep or oxen can live in the 
country after he appears. For some reason 
of his own, he does n’t bite goats, and when 
the white man brought camels and donkeys 
it was because he thought they, too, would 
be safe from the tsetse. But he was mis- 
taken, for although he rubbed them with 
lion’s fat to keep them safe, knowing well 
that the tsetse will not hurt the lion, yet 
they were bitten, and one by one they died. 
And now there are not men enough to carry 
the loads which the animals used to carry, 
and neither is there meat to eat ; so he de- 
cides to send Zungo as a messenger to the 
great chief, Kabobo, who lives thirty miles 
away in a town where there is food in 
plenty. 

He does not write a letter, for none of 
these people can read; but this is the mes- 
sage that he teaches to Zungo, and Zungo 
must say it over and over to himself as he 
travels along, that he may be sure not to 
forget it. 

“ Bazungu needs ten strong men, and 


A Long Journey, 45 

goats and corn. He will pay cloth and 
beads, and he sends you this present to let 
you know his friendship.” 

The present was a red shirt and a string of 
clear white beads. It was carefully wrapped 
in palm leaves, and Zungo carried it on his 
head. 

Over and over again he repeated his mes- 
sage and did not forget a single word, and 
in four days his joyful shout was heard in 
the distance, and he and his ten men were 
soon welcomed with clapping of hands. 
Kabobo had sent corn and palm wine, and 
goats, and begged the great Bazungu to 
visit him very soon. 

But Bazungu cannot visit any one at 
present, for the hot, damp weather has 
made him very ill. He lies in his hut, 
burning with fever; and poor little Ma- 
nenko, too, lies on a mat beside her mother, 
with hot, fevered hands, and dry, quick 
breath. But, though he is so ill himself, 
the stranger, when he hears of the sick 
child, prepares for her a bitter little powder 
like the one he is taking himself. Of 


46 


Each and AIL 


course, the little girl does n’t like the bitter 
taste of it, but the next day she is better 
and able to sit up, and soon she can go with 
her mother to say “Motota” to the kind 
Bazungu. 

Don’t forget this bitter medicine, for you 
will hear of it again before you finish this 
book. 

In a few days they are all able to go to 
Kabobo’s village, and there, for the first 
time in her life, Manenko sees .a square 
house. There are two or three of them in the 
village, built by people who have travelled 
away to the seacoast, and there seen houses 
like them. 

Around Kabobo’s town are pleasant fields 
and gardens, and everything is growing 
finely, excepting one patch of corn, which 
the men say they planted in the mouse 
month and so lost half of it, for the mice 
ate the seeds. 

One meadow is covered with pure little 
white lilies, and some medlar bushes hang 
thick with blossoms. Among the tall reeds 
you hear the brown ibis scream, “ Ha, 


A Long Journey. 47 

ha, ha J ” and flocks of green pigeons are 
feeding on the fruits of the wild fig tree. 
Certainly it is a pleasant place, and after 
their long journey Sekomi’s family think 
that here they will make their new home. 

The women of the village look up pleas- 
antly as they pass, and say: “Yambo?” 
(How are you ?) And they answer, “ Yambo 
Sana” (Very well). Everybody seems kind, 
and glad to see the travellers. 

So Maunka begins at once to build a 
new house. And then she finds fine clay, 
and shapes new water jars, smoothing them 
into their beautiful rounded forms with her 
hands, and marking them on the edge with 
pretty braided patterns like that which you 
see in the picture. And soon the new house 
is well provided ; for twenty pots, for water, 
for honey, and for porridge hang from the 
ceiling. 

But no sooner has Maunka built her 
house than another builder comes quietly 
in and goes to work to build hers in one 
corner of it. It is the paper spider, and 
Manenko sees her lay her forty or fifty 


48 


Each and All. 


eggs upon the wall, and then begin to make 
her pure white paper house to shelter them. 
She thinks the mother spider is not so dif- 
ferent from any other mother, and, instead 
of driving her away, she watches while the 
careful builder prepares her little paper wall, 
half as big as the palm of Edith’s hand, and 
then fastens it firmly over the eggs by a 
strip not wider than your finger-nail, pasted 
strongly all round the edges. 

For three long weeks she sits, like a 
mother bird on her eggs, to keep them 
warm ; after that she goes out for food in 
the day, but always comes back to cuddle 
them closely at night, and Manenko is 
never afraid for her, but watches every day 
to see when the little ones will come out 
of the eggs. 

Sekomi has been busy planting corn, and 
also some seeds that the white man has 
given him, and they already feel at home. 

Their good friend the Bazungu has tried 
to give them one present better even than 
the cloth, or the beads, or the garden seeds ; 
he has tried to teach Zungo and Manenko 


A Long Journey, 


49 


to read. But, oh, what hard work it is ! 
You have no idea of the difficulty; and at 
last one day poor Zungo says in despair: 
“ O Bazungu ! give me medicine ; I shall 
drink it to make me understand.” But you 
and I know that the only medicine that can 
make us learn is patience and perseverance ; 
and even Zungo will learn in time if he has 
these. 

You will all see by and by that even the 
little knowledge of reading and speaking 
English that he gained is a help to him, 
for a few months later another white man 
comes from the north to Kabobo’s village, 
and when he finds that Zungo can read a 
little, and understands some words of Eng- 
lish, he hires him as an interpreter, and 
promises to take him on a long journey, pay 
him well, and send him safely home again. 

And now, before we leave them in their 
new home, I must tell you of one thing that 
happens to Manenko. She is getting to be 
a great girl, and it is time for her to begin 
to wear the pelele. 

But what is the pelele 


50 


Each and A ll. 


It is an ivory ring, but not for the finger, 
or even for the ears. This poor child is go- 
ing to have her upper lip bored, and this 
ring will be put into the hole, not to hang 
down, but to stand out straight and flat in 
a very inconvenient way ; but everybody 
thought it was beautiful, and even if the 
little girl finds it painful she will not com- 
plain, but will consider it quite an honor. 
Her second teeth have come now, and they 
must be filed away to points, so that they 
look like a cat’s little sharp teeth, and then 
she is thought to look very pretty indeed. 
The white man has made a picture of her, 
dressed in her best beads, and carrying a 
pretty new water jar on her head. He will 
take it home to his own dear daughter, that 
she may learn how her little dark sisters 
look in this far-away land. 


WHAT WAS GEMILA DOING ALL 
THIS TIME? 


We have been wandering through strange, 
wild lands. Come with me now to a great 
city. But I doubt if you feel more at home 
in it than you did on Agoonack’s ice island 
or Manenko’s long journey, for it is not at 
all like any city you have ever seen — not 
like Boston or New York, not like St. Louis 
or Chicago. 

Let us stand still for a minute, if we can 
find a quiet spot in this narrow, crowded 
street, and see what it is like. It is Sunday 
afternoon, but we hear no church bells, and 
all the business seems to be going on just 
the same as on a week day. 

“ Don’t these people have any Sunday ? ” 
asks Dadie. 

Oh, yes! But their Sunday is Friday. 
On Friday they will go to their churches, 
and have their services ; but to-day is their 
51 


52 


Each and A IL 


market day, and, in almost all the towns we 
may visit in this country, we shall find a 
Sunday market. 

We are close beside a shop now, but, oh ! 
what a funny shop ! hardly bigger than a 
cupboard; and the whole side towards the 
street is open. Will you buy some of these 
sugared almonds, or a few delicious golden 
dates, of that turbaned man who sits so 
quietly in the corner, and does n’t seem to 
care whether we buy or not } If we want 
either dates or almonds, we must take a 
piastre out of our pockets to pay for them, 
for a bright silver dime or a five-cent piece 
would be something so new and strange to 
our shopkeeper, that he would shake his 
head and hand it back to you. 

But we mustn’t spend too much time 
buying dates. There is something better to 
do in this wonderful city, where even the 
houses are curious enough to make us stop 
and gaze at them. See the pretty balconies 
built out around the windows and sheltered 
by screens or shutters of beautifully carved 
wood. I fancy we can catch a glimpse of 


53 


Wkai was Gemila Doing 1 

some bright eyes peeping out at us through 
the delicate latticework, for all the ladies of 
this city sit with their little daughters all 
day long in these balconies, and look out 
through the screens on the streets below 
them, and on the passers-by. And the 
flocks of pretty ring doves sit cooing about 
them, and the swallows fly in and out, and 
sometimes even the vultures alight there 
for a moment, and no one drives them away ; 
for what would become of the people and 
the city if the faithful vultures did not clean 
the streets every day } 

But, quick, we must crowd ourselves close 
to the wall, and keep out of the way of the 
tall, brown camel that paces up the street so 
silently that we heard no footfall, and did 
not know he was coming until his long 
shadow fell across us from behind. He 
moves up the narrow lane as if the whole 
of it belonged to him, for he has come from 
the desert, where there is plenty of room, 
and he has no idea of being crowded; and 
those donkeys, with their wild-looking little 
drivers, must get out of his way as best they 


54 


Each and All, 


can. How they scramble, and how the boys 
shout to them ! But the silent camel moves 
on towards the fountain in the next square, 
and takes no notice at all of their noise. 
He is loaded with great bales of gum, and 
his master is going to sell them to the gum 
merchant at the corner of the square. 

I wonder if you will remember the master, 
this gray-faced man, with his white turban 
and loose cotton dress. It is really Abdel 
Hassan, but you didn’t expect to meet him 
in a city, did you 1 Little Gemila is with 
him, too ; that is, she is in the camp out- 
side the city gates (for this city, has walls 
and gates, and is shut up every night), and 
to-morrow she will come into the strange 
streets with her little brother Alee and one 
of the servants, to look about her, as we 
were doing just now when we had to start 
aside and make way for her father’s camel. 

I wish we could take little Gemila’s hand 
and walk with her through the city to- 
morrow, and see how wonderful it would 
all be to her. 

The donkeys with their high-cushioned 


55 


What was Gemila Doing? 

red saddles, and the camels with their noise- 
less tread, the red fez caps and turbans, and 
the women with long veils, and bright eyes 
peering through the little slit that is left 
open for them — these would not be strange 
to her. But the many beautiful fountains 
meeting you at every corner with a refresh- 
ing drink, that is something to astonish our 
little desert maiden, who generally has 
drunk water only from leathern bags or 
desert springs. And the houses that crowd 
so close on both sides of the street, and 
shut out the sky, so that she sees only one 
narrow strip of blue instead of her wide des- 
ert dome ; and the bazaars, where people are 
hustling each other, and shouting and bar- 
gaining for shawls and slippers, gold lace, 
and silk embroideries — these are things 
almost unheard of to the little girl, whose 
only garment has been the brown cotton 
dress. 

There is one thing, however, at which 
Gemila is never tired of looking ; she could 
sit and watch it from morning till night, so 
strange, so wonderful, does it seem to her. 


56 


Each and AIL 


This is not her first sight of it, as you will 
presently learn. But so strange a sight 
does not lose its newness very soon, and 
so it is that whenever, in looking down a 
street, she sees at the. end the broad river 
sparkling in the sunshine, she leaves every 
other sight for that. She runs to sit beside 
it and see the ripples dance along, and the 
boats with their pointed blue-and- white sails, 
and the sailors rowing and singing to keep 
time for their oars. 

But you will want to know how it hap- 
pened that Gemila left her desert home, and 
surprised us by appearing in the streets of 
Cairo ; and I must go back two or three 
months and tell you all about it. Like 
Manenko, she, too, has taken a long and 
wonderful journey — at least, it seems won- 
derful to you and me, for we are not so 
accustomed to travelling as she is. 

I think it was about Christmas time, a 
hot desert Christmas, remember, that Abdel 
Hassan was journeying as usual from one 
part of his wide desert home to another, 
when he met the caravan from Kordofan, 








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4 


What was Gemila Doing'? 57 

with thirty camel loads of gum, on its way 
to the great city of Cairo. 

I know you must have seen the gum that 
oozes out from the peach and plum trees in 
such clear, sticky drops ; or, at any rate, if you 
don’t know that, you have seen gum arabic, 
which you can buy at the druggist’s. Now, 
on the borders of the desert a great many 
gum trees grow. The great, clear drops of 
gum ooze out of them, as they do from the 
peach tree — only there is much more of it, 
so that it lies on the ground in little lumps, 
under the trees — and children as. young as 
Gemila and Alee go out to help gather it. 
The men pack it in great bags, and load the 
camels with it, and set out on a long desert 
march of many, many miles, to sell it in the 
distant city, and to buy, in return, cloth and 
guns, shawls and turbans — just as the Sheik 
Hassein did whom Abdel Hassan met one 
day long ago, you remember. The Kordo- 
fan sheik meets Abdel Hassan gladly, and, 
dismounting from his horse, sits beside him 
on a mat, and tells him that to see him is 
like the blessing of a new moon. And an 


58 Each and AIL 

Arab can hardly express greater pleasure 
than that. Then they smoke their long 
pipes and drink coffee together, and finally 
the sheik explains that he wants more camels 
to help carry the gum, and, after much talk, 
he agrees to buy two camels of Abdel Hassan 
and to pay him with bales of gum. Abdel 
Hassan, to whom one part of the world is as 
much home as another, decides to journey 
himself to Cairo, and sell the gum. And, 
since he goes, his whole family will go too. 

So the next day they turn their faces 
northward, and travel towards Cairo, hav- 
ing first asked the Kordofan merchants 
how far it is to the next spring. 

Their question is answered in a curious 
way, for, as these people have not many 
words, they make one answer the purpose 
of two or three. Let me show you how 
they do it. If the spring had been very 
near, they would have answered, “ Henak,” 
but as it is a very long distance away they 
make the word very long and say, “ Hen- 
a-a-a-a-ak,” and it is n’t so poor a way of 
telling distance after all, is it.^ 


59 


What was Gemila Doing? 

You know so well what Gemila’s jour- 
neys generally are that I will not tell you 
much about this, excepting the one or two 
unusual events of it. The first of these 
happened on New Year’s Day, and made 
it anything but a happy new year. It 
was n’t a snowstorm ; but it was a sand 
storm. The air was hot and hazy ; you 
could scarcely see the sun, although there 
were no clouds to hide him, and presently 
all this sultry air began to stir, and whistle, 
and rush, and whirl. The light, dry sand 
was caught up by it, blown into drifts as 
high as a tall man, driven into every fold 
of the dress or turban, into every eye and 
ear and nostril, with a cutting, stinging 
keenness such as we might feel in a fierce, 
wild snowstorm in one of our bitter winter 
days, only it is hot and tingling, instead of 
cold and tingling. 

You could perhaps bear this for a few 
minutes, but not longer; and this terrible 
storm lasted two hours. At first the men 
only unfolded the cloth of their turbans so 
as to wrap it round the face and ears, and 


6o 


Each and All, 


the women and children drew veils over 
their heads; but it was impossible to con- 
tinue to travel in such a storm. And when 
they saw a great rock not far away, standing 
like a tall, black tower or fortress in the 
yellow sand, Abdel Hassan was not slow in 
leaping from his black horse and planting 
his spear, as a sign that they should encamp 
in this welcome shelter. 

Here they lay, and heard the great whis- 
tling wind drive through every cranny and 
crevice ; and at last they saw a tall pillar of 
sand whirled up by the wind until it seemed 
to reach the sky. It moved along in a 
stately sort of waltz, round and round, and 
still advancing over the burning sands, and 
presently it was joined by another and an- 
other, and the strange monsters moved on 
like a party of giants pleasing themselves 
by a wild desert dance. It was well for 
little Gemila that the wind carried them 
away from, instead of towards, her shelter- 
ing rock, for who would have been able to 
stand against those terrible, strong, blinding 
whirls of sand that the fierce wind had raised ? 


What was Gemila Doing? 6i 

When at last the sun could be seen again, 
and the wind slowly died away, our poor 
travellers lay tired and feverish, and as little 
able to proceed on their way as if they had 
been ill for many days. 

But a cool and quiet night refreshed them, 
and early in the morning they are up and 
away. The only signs that the sand storm 
had left behind were great yellow drifts, 
some of them as high as a house, that hid 
the track, and confused even Abdel Hassan 
himself as to which direction he should take 
to reach the bitter wells, their next drinking 
place. And so it happened that they rode 
doubtfully on during all that morning, and, 
after the noonday rest, changed their line 
of march a little more towards the north, 
and looked eagerly forward for the first 
distant glimpse of the tufted top of a palm 
tree.. 

And Gemila is the first to clap her hands, 
and shout, “Look, look!” while she points 
towards the distant horizon ; and there 
against the blue sky stand clusters of 
feathery palms beside a pretty pond of 


62 


Each and AIL 


water, that looks like a bit of the sky itself 
dropped down to rest upon the yellow sands. 
In the water’s edge tall reeds are growing, 
and on the farther shore stand black rocks 
overhanging their black reflections in the 
water. Oh, what a lovely little place ! — the 
prettiest spring that the child has ever seen. 
But although she claps her hands and 
shouts for joy, her father shows no signs 
of pleasure, and the camel drivers only shake 
their heads and look sober; and neither do 
the camels nor horses hasten forward, as 
they usually do when they smell the fresh 
water from afar. 

“See,” says old Achmet to the little girl, 
“ see, it is not a true spring ; those are not 
real palm trees. Watch them, and you will 
know that I tell you the truth.” 

And Gemila watched; and presently some 
of the trees seemed to be standing on their 
heads, and the pretty blue pond ran into 
the sky, as if there were no line between ; 
and Achmet said to her : “ If it were real 
water it would look darker than the sky, but 
this is just the same color.” And, as she 


63 


What was Gemila Doing? 

watched, a silvery blur came over it all, and 
she rubbed her eyes to see more plainly ; but 
when she looked again, it was all gone, and 
the desolate waste of yellow sand lay before 
them. It was only a beautiful air picture, 
which is called a mirage, and wise desert 
travellers like Abdel Hassan and Achmet 
know it well; but strangers or children are 
deceived by it and wander out of their way 
to find the refreshing place, which vanishes 
into silver mist and leaves them to turn 
back disappointed, if indeed they are able 
to find the path at all. 

You will be glad to know that before sun- 
set they did reach a real spring or well of 
bitter water, not very good, but better than 
nothing ; and the camels drank, and the 
water bags were filled, and they went on 
as before. 

And now every day they see something 
new. There are valleys walled in by black 
rocks, and strange caves, where they some- 
times camp at night. And at last, one day, 
they see before them everywhere groves of 
trees — date, lemon, citron, and acacia, and 


64 


Each and AIL 


many others — and as they turn out of the 
rocky valley the men raise a great shout, 
“El bahr, el bahr ! ” (The river, the river!) 
The broad, blue, rolling water lies before 
them ; and this is Gemila’s first sight of the 
river. Now it will keep them company for 
days and days as they journey along its 
banks, and drink of its waters, and hear its 
rippling waves at night as they lie in the 
caves along its shores, and feel its cool 
breeze refreshing them after the terrible 
desert heat. 

One night they reach a great rock filled 
with caves like little rooms of a house, and 
all the walls inside are painted with strange 
pictures. 

You know we sometimes take a picture 
and make up a story about it, telling what 
we think this or that person is doing or 
where he is going ; but these pictures tell 
stories themselves — that is what they were 
painted there for — and there is a long, hard 
name for them, which means something like 
picture writing. 

Gemila sees t)ne wall all marked out in 


65 


What was Gemila Doing? 

bright colors — red, blue, green, and yellow 
pictures — telling how a family had visitors 
to dine, and* how the cooks prepared the 
dishes, and how the baby sat in his mother’s 
lap and watched the guests, and how the cats 
and dogs lived and played with them just 
as they do with you to-day, — only nobody 
in all those pictures was ever seen to hurt 
or trouble any animal. And when I tell 
you that the people who painted them lived 
thousands of years ago you will wonder, as I 
do, that we can still see them so plainly. I 
think they had very good paints, don’t you ? 
They could n’t write as we do now, and they 
wanted all the story of their lives — what 
they did, and where they went, and what 
little children they had to love and take 
care of — to be remembered. So they had 
it all painted on these hard rocks, that 
would not wear out as the leaves of books 
do; and there you and I could see it this 
very day, just as Gemila does when she 
wakes at early morning and creeps up over 
the steep rocks and looks at the pictures, 
where the long rays of the rising sun shine 


66 


Each and AIL 


far into the caves. There is a red man 
with a green head, driving four horses 
harnessed to a chariot; and a little blue 
girl is feeding the pigeons, just as we 
should want to feed the living pigeons that 
flutter in such great flocks around every 
village, and sleep in the funny tall pigeon 
houses made of earthen jars, on the top of 
almost every house. 

You see, now that they have reached the 
river, They find villages all along its banks; 
and, for the first time in her life, Gemila 
learns what houses are, and thinks that she 
likes a tent better. And she sees waving 
fields of golden wheat, and the rice growing 
in the low meadows, and she tastes the 
gingerbread that grows on the dom-palm 
tree. She watches the brown ibis and the 
stork and vulture busy at their work of 
cleaning the village streets, picking up and 
eating up all the dirty and disagreeable 
things that the careless people have thrown 
there, which would otherwise soon decay 
and cause sickness. 

Our little girl has hardly time to sleep. 


67 


What was Gemila Doing? 

there is so much to see. The children, too, 
are so different in some ways from herself ! 
Here is one little girl buttering her hair 
with a thick layer of not very sweet butter, 
and another has all her braids soaked in 
castor oil, and thinks it charming. They 
can swim, too, and you may very well know 
that Gemila, who has never before seen a 
river, or even a lake, has never learned to 
swim ; and when she sees the girls and boys 
splashing in the water she laughs and 
shouts with delight. One little boy sits 
astride a round log for a boat, and steers 
himself across the stream. How she wishes 
she could do the same ! 

But if I stop to tell you all the wonders 
of the way, we shall never reach Cairo. So 
let us hurry on, past the great stone pyra- 
mids standing so grand in the desert, and 
past the wonderful stone image with head 
like a person and fore paws like a lion, and 
all the rest of its body buried in sand, that 
looked so grand and solemn in the moon- 
light as they met it suddenly on their march 
the last evening before reaching Cairo. The 


68 


Each and AIL 


great solemn face, ten yards in length, look- 
ing out over the desert sands, seemed to 
have a thousand wonderful stories to tell 
of all that it had seen since the men of ages 
ago carved it out of the great rock. But it 
told none of them to the little awe-struck 
Arab girl, nor to the camel drivers, who 
hastened to pitch the red-and-black striped 
tent and unload their camels for the night, 
as if the great face were not watching them 
all the while. 

Very early in the morning, while sky and 
sand are covered with rosy light, Gemila is 
wandering among the strange, great rocks, 
watching the lizards’ little red or blue 
tails disappearing through the cracks as 
they glide away from her, and the little jer- 
boas sitting outside their sand houses. But 
already the camels are loaded, and the 
tents are struck, and to-day she will see the 
gates of Cairo. 

I wish I had time to tell you of all that 
may be seen in that city, but we are lead- 
ing an Arab life now, and do not stop long 
in any one place. And so it is that one 


69 


TVkaf was Gemila Doing '{ 

day, when the Khamaseen wind begins to 
blow, Abdel Hassan is reminded of the 
desert ; the old wandering feeling comes 
over him, and he says he will stay no longer 
in Cairo. 

But perhaps you do not know why the 
Khamaseen wind should remind him of the 
desert. It has come from the desert, and 
it fills all the air with a fine yellow dust that 
is borrowed from the yellow sand on the 
way. They call it Khamaseen, because, in 
the language of that country, Khamaseen 
means fifty, and for fifty days this hot wind 
blows most of the time. It has reminded 
Abdel Hassan of his old home, and he must 
begin to think of his return. 

But he has sold his camels, as well as his 
gum ; and what is an Arab without camels 
True, he has money enough to buy more 
than he has ever owned before, but he will 
buy them better from the desert tribes than 
here in Cairo ; and so it happens that a new 
way of life offers itself for him and his 
family. They will go in a Nile boat as far 
as Korosko, and there, where the river 


70 


Each a7zd All, 


makes a great curve like the letter C, and 
half encircles a desert, they will leave it and 
begin again their life among the rocks 
and sand. 

This is a delightful journey to Gemila 
and Alee ; they are learning to love the 
river, and to know what a mighty friend 
it is to all the country. We who live by 
a river can tell how useful it is in many 
ways to our own country; but this great 
river Nile is more useful to its country than 
any of our rivers are to us. Before Gemila 
reaches her desert home she will see a very 
remarkable change in it. Now its waters 
roll quietly on in a narrow channel, but in 
a few weeks they will rise and rise, higher 
and higher every day, and presently all the 
country on both sides will be flooded like 
a great lake. “ Ah ! ” you say, “ what will 
become of all the poor people and the 
houses E' 

Do not be anxious about them, for they 
have seen the river behave in this way every 
year since they were born, and they have 
built all their houses on high land for safety ; 


71 


What was Gemila Doing? 

and they watch the rising of the water with 
delight, for it comes as a messenger of good 
will to tell them of fruitful fields and fine 
harvests, since it waters for them the fields 
on which no rain ever falls. Only think of 
that ; Gemila has never seen rain ! I have 
heard it said that there is a great shower in 
the desert, perhaps once in ten or twenty 
years, but our little girl is only nine years 
old, and it has n’t come in her time. Think 
how dry and desolate the whole country 
would be if it were not that this good friend, 
the river, gathers all the rains and melted 
snows from the mountain countries far away, 
even as far as those hills towards which 
Manenko travelled, and pours them down 
through hundreds of miles to bless and 
refresh this thirsty land. 

In our country we have four seasons. 
When the snow is all gone, and the birds 
begin to come, and the farmers prepare to 
plant their seeds, we call it spring ; summer 
brings the flowers and fruits, and autumn 
is harvest time; then comes winter, which 
Dossie and Edith like best of all. But in 


72 


Each and AIL 


this land where Gemila is travelling, the 
river alone decides what the seasons shall be. 

When the water begins to rise it is like 
a promise of spring to the farmer; and so 
regularly does it rise and fall that he knows 
well that, when November comes, he must 
have his seed ready for planting, for the 
river will have fallen, and the rich, damp 
slime will be left by its waters upon the 
fields; so we may call November his spring- 
time. And when the wheat and rice are 
well grown in the damp fields, and need 
only a greater heat to ripen them, then 
comes the Khamaseen wind and hastens 
the harvest; and that must bring autumn. 
And, after autumn, do you think they ex- 
pect snow ? Oh, no, indeed ! They have 
never seen snow, and only once in a while 
a little ice. But a dry, hot time comes, 
when nothing will grow, and the river has 
shrunk away again into its old narrow bed ; 
and you may call the season by what name 
you like, only the people are very glad when 
it ends, and the friendly river begins to rise 
again; and that is about the last of June. 


What was Gemila Doing 1 ' 73 

But all this while the river has been 
floating our travellers down to Korosko; 
and here Abdel Hassan buys his camels, 
and among them one beautiful milk-white 
dromedary, a camel with one hump on its 
back instead of two. This gentle creature 
trots and runs with so easy and steady 
a motion, that its rider might drink a cup 
of milk while going at a full trot, and 
not spill a single drop. Would n’t you like 
to have that dromedary to ride on, little 
Georgie 1 Do you think Gemila will ride 
it ? Oh, no ! it is to have quite a different 
rider. In this little town by the river an 
English gentleman and his wife are waiting 
for guides and camels to cross the desert 
to Abou Hammed, and when this gentle- 
man sees the gentle white dromedary, he 
thinks that nothing could be more easy 
and comfortable for his wife’s riding on 
this hard journey, so he hires both Abdel 
Hassan and his camels to cross the desert 
with him. 

Six months ago little Gemila would have 
been lost in wonder at seeing the white 


74 


Each and AIL 


people ; but in Cairo she saw, every day, 
people from Europe and from America, and 
she recognizes them at once and stretches 
out her little brown hand for backsheesh 
(a present), feeling pretty sure that they will 
give it. 

And now there are great preparations 
for this desert journey. The women have 
made crisp abreys, baked in the sun, and 
plenty of kisras of durra flour. New water 
bags are made of gazelle skins, and a whole 
sheep is roasted. Just before they are ready 
to start, the women of the village hurry into 
camp with baskets of milk to sell. The heat 
will soon turn it sour, but in that country 
sour milk is thought an excellent drink. 

This is a part of the desert quite new to 
Gemila, but her father travelled there many 
years ago and knows it well. The sand is 
gray instead of yellow, and there are all 
sorts of odd round stones strewn every- 
where, as if some giants had been playing 
a game of ball, and had neglected to put 
away their playthings. If we should break 
open one of these black balls, we should 


75 


What was Gemila Doing? 

find it hollow and filled with bright red 
sand, though how the sand came there or 
the pebbles either, I am at a loss to tell you. 

Presently one of the camels runs his 
head into a kittar bush for a mouthful of 
its spiny leaves. And since you know Ma- 
nenko’s wait-a-bit thorn, I will also intro- 
duce you to this kittar bush, which is its 
own cousin, only twice as strong, and it 
clutches with such a hold that it ought 
to have a name meaning, “stop entirely.” 
Many is the long tear 'in dress or turban 
that the kittar bushes give them before 
they reach the end of their journey. 

Gemila also makes the acquaintance of 
some monkeys that are found one day, 
poor, thirsty creatures, digging wells for 
themselves in the sand. Only think how 
wise they are. And she sees the tall milk- 
weed plants, with their pretty, silvery fish 
for seeds ; but old Achmet tells her not to 
touch them, for they are very poisonous, 
and only the goats can eat them with safety. 

They are coming now to the land of wild 
asses and of guinea hens. Who was it that 


76 


Each and AIL 


had guinea hens for dinner whenever there 
was nothing else to be had ? Do you think 
we are near Manenko’s country ? And after 
three weary weeks they come, one beautiful 
evening, again in sight of the river and the 
villages; and an old sheik hastens out to 
meet them and says, “ Salaam aleikum ” 
(Peace be with you) and welcomes them to 
his hut. 

I said they had reached the land of guinea 
hens ; it also begins to be the land of round 
houses with pointed roofs, but the houses 
are of stone, and the roofs only of reeds and 
straw. A change, too, has come in the 
weather — a very remarkable change for our 
desert people. There is going to be a rainy 
season ! When the first shower comes our 
foolish little Gemila stands still in wonder, 
gets wet through, and the next day lies on 
her little mat, and begins to feel very ill — 
so ill that her mother goes to the fakir for 
some medicine. 

Now we all know that medicine is dis- 
agreeable enough to take, but any one of 
you will take it for the sake of getting 


77 


W/iat was Gemila Doing? 

well ; and you will be interested to know 
what Gemila’s medicine is, and how she 
takes it. 

The old fakir listens to her mother’s 
account of the child’s illness, and then 
he takes down a little board which hangs 
beside his door, plasters it over with 
lime, and writes upon it some words from 
the Koran, which is the Arab’s Bible. 
When all is finished, he washes it off, 
plaster, ink, and all, into a gourd cup ; and 
that is the medicine. Very disagreeable 
indeed, I think; and, what is worse, I am 
afraid it won’t make her well. I wish she 
had one of those bitter white powders that 
Bazungu gave to Manenko. Perhaps the 
English lady, who always has been kind 
to the little girl, will be able to help her. 

When the mother has waited three days 
for the fakir’s medicine to cure her sick 
little daughter, and each day she has grown 
worse instead of better, she goes to the tent 
outside the village, where the English people 
are living, and tells the “ sity,” as she calls 
her, that poor little Gemila will die if she 


78 


Each and AIL 


cannot have some medicine to make her 
better. And, only think, the “ sity ” has 
some of those same bitter powders. She 
comes herself to give one to the child, and 
leaves another to be taken next day; and, 
although it is a very long time before Ge- 
mila can run and play as usual, she begins 
slowly to recover. In a week or two 
she is able to sit by the river and watch 
the boys floating on their rafts of ambatch 
wood, which is a very safe plaything in the 
water, for it is lighter than cork. And in 
the early morning she creeps out to see 
the beautiful lotus flowers flash open to the 
sunlight. 

One day a white man’s caravan comes into 
the village ; there are camels and donkeys, 
and men from the far south, the mountain 
country where the great river gathers its 
waters. The white man’s face is as brown 
as an Arab’s, he has travelled so long in the 
hot sunshine. His men have woolly hair, 
strangely plaited and matted together, and 
dressed in such a way as to look like high 
helmets of thick felt. They are smeared 


79 


What was Gemila Doing 1 

with grease and adorned with cowrie shells 
and bracelets of ivory ; and among them is 
Zungo, the brother of Manenko. You re- 
member a white man came and took him 
on a journey ; and here we find him beside 
the river Nile, and our little Gemila is look- 
ing up at him, and wondering if he has a 
little sister at home with woolly hair like 
his own. Of course she never knew any- 
thing about Manenko; but it happens that 
at this place Zungo’s master is to leave him, 
or rather send him back to his home, and 
the English gentleman, who will go south- 
ward next month, is very glad to engage 
him as a servant and interpreter. And now 
he, for the first time in his life, is paid for 
his services with money. 

You remember what the Bazungu paid 
him for cutting the wood and making the 
fires, and afterwards he had a yard of cloth 
a day when he travelled as interpreter. 
Now the English gentleman shows him a 
large round silver piece of money. A 
picture of a lady’s head is on one side, 
and some figures on the other. What it 


8o 


Each and All. 


is worth he doesn’t know at all, but you 
and I would call it a dollar. When Zungo 
wants a name for it he calls it, as the 
other men do, “ the father of buttons ” ; 
and when the new master promises to pay 
him with just such silver pieces, he soon 
learns that here at Abou Hammed they will 
buy food and clothes, and anything else that 
he wants, provided only that he has enough 
of them. He stays a month in the village, 
for it is not best to start until the heaviest 
rains are over, and he becomes good friends 
with Gemila and Alee, as well as with their 
father. 

When the day arrives for the English 
gentleman’s caravan to depart for the south, 
little Gemila, who is now quite well, and 
will start with her father to-morrow for her 
old desert home, brings a big bead, such as 
the Arabs call a pigeon’s egg, and sends it 
as a present to Manenko, the little sister 
that she has never seen. 


NEW WORK FOR PEN-SE AND LIN. 


Do you remember that Pen-se did not 
always live in the boat on the river? It 
was in the tea country among the hills 
that she was born, and now she is going 
back again to a place very near her old 
home, for a letter has come from her uncle 
in the Hoo-chow country, asking her father 
to come up and help him upon his silk farm. 
And very soon the boat and the ducks are 
sold to his neighbor Ah-foo, and Kang-hy 
and his wife, with their three children, are 
on their way to the Hoo-chow country. 

Even the little girl can work on the silk 
farm; and you will realize that when you 
see what a silk farm is. 

Here are rows and rows of low, bushy 
mulberry trees; and every morning, while 
the leaves are fresh with dew, the two little 
girls and their mother go out with their 
baskets to gather them. We will follow, 

8i 


82 


Each and AIL 


and see what they do next. We carry our 
baskets to a bamboo house with curtained 
windows, standing cool and quiet at the 
farther side of the field. Kang-hy is there 
before us, and when he sees our fresh leaves 
he opens the door a little way and says, 
“ Go in carefully ; don’t disturb them ” ; and 
then he quickly shuts the door, for fear of 
letting in too much light. 

Do you think there is a baby asleep in 
there, that we must be so quiet Look 
about you ; there is no baby to be seen. 
But little trays, something like sieves, are 
everywhere, and Pen-se is going from one 
to another and supplying each with her 
fresh mulberry leaves. And presently all 
around us rises a curious little sound of 
thousands of little mouths at work munch- 
ing and munching. Peep into this nearest 
tray, and look at the hungry silkworms 
having their breakfast. Were there ever 
busier or greedier eaters } But when one 
has a great deal of work to do one must 
eat to get strength for doing it; and these 
little worms have each three hundred yards 







New Work for Pen-se and Lin. 83 

of silk to spin before the month is out. So 
they eat and grow, and grow and eat, as 
busily as possible ; and when they get too 
big for their skins they just take them off, 
and a new, soft, elastic one comes in place 
of the old, and gives them a fine chance 
of growing and growing more and more. 

I am sure you have all seen the pretty 
chrysalids that caterpillars make in the 
autumn. My children know them well 
enough, for we had a whole box full last year, 
and they peopled a butterfly house in the 
spring. Sometimes the chrysalids are dry 
and horny, but once in a while you see a 
silky one. That is the kind this worm will 
make — a silky chrysalis of a pale gold 
color; and then Pen-se will help to gather 
them up, and her mother will wind off the 
silk in beautiful, soft, flossy skeins, and take 
it to market to sell. 

Pen-se likes this work even better than 
rowing the tanka boat on the river. She 
grows fond of the little worms. She is 

O 

careful to clean out their trays neatly 
every morning, and give them the best and 


84 Each and AIL 

freshest leaves, and she longs to be old 
enough to wind off the silk herself. She 
is tempted to try it, but her mother says: 
“No, not yet.” And I am glad to say that 
in China little girls do not tease or fret. 
So Pen-se waits, and in a few days a 
delightful opportunity comes to her. It is 
this: out in the woods, half a mile from 
the house, she finds some wild silkworms 
spinning their webs on a mulberry tree, and 
she marks the place and promises herself 
that in a few days, when the chrysalids 
are ready, she will come back and take 
them. So one day, a week later, she runs 
to her mother with her little bamboo basket 
full of wild cocoons, and tells her story of 
finding them in the woods, and timidly asks, 
since they are her own, whether she may try 
to wind them. Her mother is willing; and 
oh, what a proud, happy little girl she is 
when she has a skein of silk of her own 
winding! Not so fine and even as her 
mother’s, to be sure — but wild silk is 
never the best — and yet it is strong and 
useful for some coarser weaving ; and when 


New Work for Pen-se and Lin. 85 

she has a pound, she may carry it to market 
and sell it. 

Do you wish you lived in a country where 
you could find wild silk in the woods } 

Pen-se is only a little girl, but she has 
a great deal of hard work to do, especially 
now that her father cannot have much help 
from her brother Lin ; for Lin is going to 
school. Can’t Pen-se go to school, too } 
No, I am sorry to say that in her country 
nobody thinks it best for little girls to learn 
even reading and writing; and, when you 
think of it, don’t you remember that neither 
Agoonack, Manenko, nor Gemila ever went 
to school } But Lin is a boy, and boys 
must all learn at least reading and writing, 
if nothing more. 

Do you remember the first day you ever 
went to school } If you do, you will like to 
hear about Lin’s first schoolday. 

His father looked in the almanac to see 
what would be a lucky day for a little boy 
to begin going to school, and when he found 
in the long list of lucky days, “June 8 is a 
good day for beginning school,” he decided 


86 


Each and AIL 


upon that, and early in the morning he 
provided the child with all that he will need 
for school. 

Do you think he will have a slate and 
pencil and a book } 

Oh, no ! He carries two little candles, 
some perfumed sticks, and some little papers 
of make-believe money — that is all. Walk- 
ing beside his father, he goes up to the vil- 
lage where the schoolhouse is, and, finding 
the teacher at the door, Kang-hy makes a 
low bow and presents his son. He does 
not tell the teacher Lin’s name, for to-day 
the boy will have a new name given him, 
which will be called his book name, and we 
shall have to leave off calling him Lin, and 
begin to call him Li-hoo instead. Is n’t that 
funny } 

Now, what will he do with the things 
he has brought Do you think they are 
a present for the teacher No, for the 
teacher leads the little boy to a table, 
where he places the candles and lights 
them, and then shows the child how to 
burn his perfumed sticks and his mock 


New Work for Pen-se and Lin. 87 

money ; and all that is done in honor of a 
great and wise teacher who taught in that 
country thousands of years ago. As the 
little boy is to study from the books of that 
teacher, it is thought right to perform this 
service of respect to his memory. And if to 
you and me it seems like nonsense, we will 
not laugh at it, but only say : “ If he thinks 
it will please the wise and good teacher, let 
him do it.” 

And now the real studying is to begin. 
Do you know how many letters there are 
in the alphabet 

“ There are twenty-six,” says little Georgie. 

And do you want to know how many 
letters there are for this little Chinese 
boy to learn in his alphabet.^ Poor child! 
I pity him, for there are thirty thousand. 
But long before he has learned them all 
he will be able to read common words and 
stories, for most of the letters are really 
whole words, not spelled out as ours are, 
but a sort of picture writing. And soon he 
learns that this letter (o) means the sun ; 
and that if it is made just above a straight 


88 


Each and AIL 


line, so (o), it means the early morning, 
for the sun is just above the horizon. This 
(m) is a mountain. And some of the others 
are just as simple and easy to learn, but 
there are many almost too difficult to think 
of trying. 

After his reading and writing are finished 
for the day, he learns to repeat this sentence 
from the book of the wise teacher who lived 
so long ago : 

“ The portrait of a father is a book which 
teaches a son his duties.” 

I think I understand that, for I know 
some little children who love to play in the 
room where the portrait of their grandfather 
hangs, and his pleasant face smiles down 
upon them, helping them to be good and 
patient in their little trials, and helpful to 
each other. Perhaps that is what Li-hoo 
feels when he has learned his sentence and 
stands back to the schoolmaster (for that 
position is considered only proper and 
polite) and repeats it slowly and carefully, 
word for word. 

Now school is over for the day, and Li- 


New Work for Pen-se and Lin, 89 

hoo turns into Lin again, and runs home 
to tell his wondering little sister what new 
things he has learned. 

I cannot say whether Pen-se wishes that 
she, too, could go to school. If she does, 
she says nothing about it, for she has never 
heard of such a thing as girls going to 
school, and does n’t suppose it possible. 
But you and I would welcome her to our 
school, if she came here, would n’t we } 

One day at the end of the summer her 
brother comes home very happy; he has, 
for the first time, read a story for himself, 
and at night he repeats it to Pen-se. I will 
repeat it for you, that you may see what 
kind of stories the Chinese children read. 

Here it is : 

“ There was a boy whose father was so 
poor that he could not afford to send him 
to school, but was obliged to make him 
work all day in the fields to help maintain 
the family. The lad was so anxious to learn 
that he wished to give up a part of the 
night to study, but his mother had not the 
means of supplying him with a lamp for that 


90 


Each and All. 


purpose. So he brought home every even- 
ing a glowworm, which, being wrapped in 
a thin piece of gauze and applied to the 
lines of a book, gave sufficient light to 
enable him to read; and thus he acquired 
so much knowledge that in course of time 
he became a minister of state, and sup- 
ported his parents with ease and comfort 
in their old age.” Lin is so fond of going 
to school that he almost believes he shall 
be like the boy in this story, and he hopes, 
at any rate, to take good care of his father 
and mother in their old age. That is what 
every child in China means to do, and I 
hope every child in our own country, too. 

But we will leave Lin hard at work on 
his studies, and see what the rest of the 
family are doing. 

Do you know about the wax makers.^ 

I think I can hear Edith answer : “ Oh, 
yes, the bees ! ” But I must say : “ Oh, no ; 
I mean the tiny brown wax insects that 
cover themselves, and the tree on which 
they feed, with fine white wax.” 

While the women and children have been 


New Work for Pen-se and Lin. 91 

busy with silkworms, Kang-hy has gone every 
day to help another man collect the wax 
from the wax trees, and now the time has 
come for the little wax insects to lay their 
very tiny eggs. These are carefully gath- 
ered and packed in leaves, and must be car- 
ried to the hatching trees, which are miles 
and miles away in quite another part of the 
country. For some curious reason, these 
little creatures thrive best during their 
babyhood in one country, and when their 
wax-working days begin, they want to be 
carried to another. So the men, having 
collected a great many packages of eggs, 
start on a two weeks’ journey to the hatch- 
ing trees. If they should travel in the 
daytime, the heat of the sun would hatch 
the eggs before their time. On that 
account the men have chosen to make the 
journey at a time when the moon is large, 
and they can see to travel in the night; 
and for a whole fortnight they sleep by 
day and walk by night. And pleasant 
walks they are, too, through the beautiful 
green woods, where the wild azaleas and 


92 


Each a7id AIL 


camellias lift their fair white faces in the 
moonlight, and the great lantern flies flash 
among the dark foliage. 

Kang-hy is a very industrious man, and 
just now he is earning all the money he 
possibly can for two reasons — very impor- 
tant reasons, both of them, as you will 
see. 

The first is, that a little new baby boy 
has been born, and the father who has four 
children must work harder and earn more 
than the father who has only three. 

Now I must tell you about this little baby 
and how he was welcomed — welcomed with 
the greatest rejoicings, because he was a 
boy, and in China they are more glad to 
have boys than girls. 

When he is a few days old the father 
invites all his friends to a feast, and, taking 
the baby in his arms, holds him up before 
them all and gives him a name. At first 
he thought of calling this child Number 
Four, for a number is considered as good 
as a name ; but finally he decides upon 
Chang-fou, and this becomes the baby’s pet 


New Work for Pen-se and Lin, 93 

name, or baby name, which will last him 
until he has his school name, just as Lin had 
his a few months ago. Then the mother 
ties his wrists together with a little red 
string; that is thought to be the way to 
make him good and obedient. And when 
he grows big enough to understand, if ever 
he is naughty somebody will say to him : 
“ Why, why ! did your mother forget to bind 
your wrists 1 ” Is n’t that a funny thing 
to do.f^ 

And now you can imagine how our little 
Pen-se will spend all her spare minutes in 
playing with the baby, and carrying him out 
to see the beautiful gold and silver pheas- 
ants, and the gay ricebirds, and the half- 
dozen pretty little puppies that she feeds 
every day with rice, and watches and tends 
so carefully. 

Do you know what she will do with the 
puppies when they are very plump and fat } 
Don’t you remember that there were fat 
puppies for sale in the market of the great 
city by the river where Pen-se used to live } 
She is really fattening them to sell, for she 


94 


Each and AIL 


too, little as she is, must earn money and 
help her father. 

Now I must tell you the second reason 
why Kang-hy wants to earn all he can. He 
has heard of a wonderful country far away 
over the sea — a country where the hills 
and the rivers are full of gold, and where 
white men and women, such as he sees in 
the American ships at Canton, have their 
homes. I am afraid that some of the things 
he has heard are not wholly true, but at 
least it is quite certain that a man or boy 
can earn ten times as much money in that 
distant California as he can in the rice fields 
or the silk farms of China. 

Of course Kang-hy cannot go himself and 
leave his family behind, but Lin is now 
almost fourteen years old, and he might be 
sent, if only enough money could be earned 
to pay his passage across the wide ocean. 
It is for that that his father works, and 
Pen-se saves her silk money and her puppy 
money, and the mother makes little wax 
candles colored red with vermilion, and car- 
ries them to market to sell. 


New Work for Pen-se and Lin. 95 

At last they have all together accumu- 
lated about ten dollars, and with this they 
go to the mandarin of the village, and ask 
him to make arrangements for sending Lin 
to America. And the mandarin goes to the 
captain of the American ship and shows him 
the money and the boy, and says : “ Can do.?^ 
No can do ” And the captain answers, 
“No can do,” and poor Lin turns away dis- 
appointed. But he is to go, after all, for 
there is in the city a company of merchants 
that has engaged a ship to take seven hun- 
dred men and boys who want to go to this 
new country, and they promise to give Lin 
a place if he will pay the ten dollars now 
and thirty dollars more after he has earned 
it; and it seems very easy to earn thirty 
dollars in a country where he will be paid 
half a dollar a day. At home he received 
only a few cents. 

But there is one thing more to be attended 
to; his father must write a promise that,. if 
the boy does not succeed in paying the 
thirty dollars, he will do it himself. That is 
a hard promise for Kang-hy to give. It has 


96 


Each and AIL 


been so difficult to earn ten dollars, how can 
he ever earn thirty? But nevertheless he 
makes the promise, and says : “ I will rather 
sell my other children to pay it, than not 
keep my promise, now that it is made.” 

And so little Lin will leave his father, 
mother, and sisters, and baby brother, and 
go alone to a strange country, where the 
people speak a different language, do not 
eat with chopsticks, nor wear braided tails 
of hair; where the school children do not 
recite with their backs to the teacher, and, 
more surprising than all, where little girls, 
as well as boys, learn to read and write, and 
a great deal more besides. 

I have said, “ where the people speak a 
different language, ” but already Lin has 
learned a little of that strange language in 
the odd talk called pigeon English, which 
he hears the American sailors talking to the 
Chinamen of Canton. They seem to think 
that to put ey on the end of a word will 
make it more easily understood, and when 
they speak to a Chinaman they say findey 
instead of find, and piecey instead of piece. 


New Work for Pen-se and Lin. 97 

and catchey instead of catch. They have 
other funny words, to which they give mean- 
ings of their own ; and since they succeed 
in understanding each other, perhaps it 
is very well. But what would you think to 
hear your papa say, “ Catchey some chow- 
chow, chop-chop,” when he meant only to 
ask Bridget to bring him some breakfast 
quickly ? 

This kind of talk may do in Canton, but 
I don’t believe Lin will find it very useful 
in San Francisco, where he will land in a 
few weeks. 

I can’t tell you about the voyage to San 
Francisco; I am afraid it was very uncom- 
fortable. The boys were crowded together, 
and they felt homesick and seasick. But 
such troubles end at last; and so, in time, 
comes the sunny morning when they sail 
into the beautiful harbor called the Golden 
Gate. The little boy looks out at the long, 
low hills, with their light-houses, and the 
beautiful city lying before him in the sun- 
light, and he wonders at seeing no tanka 
boats, and no people living in duck boats. 


98 


Each and All, 


as there are in his own country. And then 
he has no time to wonder any more, for he 
finds himself on land, and is hurried along 
with the crowd to the company’s houses, 
where he will stay until work is found for 
him. 

“ What kind of work ? ” do you ask ? 
There are many kinds of work from which 
to choose. There is digging at the gold 
mines, but that is too hard for a boy so 
young, and the work on the new railroad 
is also too heavy for him. He can go to 
the great laundry to do washing, or, if he 
prefers, he can go out to service with some 
family. Poor boy ! He is so homesick that 
the thought of a family seems almost like 
a home, and he timidly suggests that he 
should like that best ; so he is sent to the 
house of Mr. Leighton, who came yesterday 
to the laundry to look for a boy. When 
Mrs. Leighton looks at him she says: “Oh, 
you are too little ! You are not strong 
enough to do the work.” To which poor 
Lin, only half understanding her, answers, 
“ Me muchey workey, me wash dish ” ; and 


New Work for Pen-se and Lm. 99 

then catching sight of the baby, who lay 
crowing and kicking on the floor, he added, 
thinking of his own little baby brother at 
home, “ Me playey baby, me jumpey he.” 

So the mothers heart softens towards 
him, and she says that he may come and 
try. And pretty soon it happens that little 
baby Margie begins to delight in Lin more 
than in any other member of the household. 
He lets her play with his pigtail, and sings 
her little Chinese songs, and talks to her 
in the funny language which she thinks a 
perpetual joke. And at last one day when 
her mamma is trying to have her photo- 
graph taken, to send to her far-away aunties, 
nobody can keep her still until Lin, all 
dressed in his best suit, stands up and 
holds her in his arms; and it is their 
picture which you see at the beginning of 
this story. 

Lin was delighted when he saw his* own 
picture with the “Melican baby, ” and Mr. 
Leighton gave him one of them to send 
home to his father and mother. So he sat 
down that evening after his work was done 


lOO 


Each and AIL 


and wrote the following letter to send to 
China by the very next mail. I will turn it 
into our own language for you, as the inter- 
preter did for the white man in Manenko’s 
land. 

But first you will be interested to see how 
Lin is writing his letter. When you write 
a letter you begin at the left side of your 
paper, but he begins at the right and writes 
in columns, as you do sometimes in your 
writing books. It would puzzle you and 
me, but his father will know how to read 
it, and that is the most important thing, 
isn’t it? 

My dear and honored Father and Mother, — 

May the light shine upon you. 

You will see a picture of your son Lin, holding in 
his arms a Melican baby. She is a pretty baby, like 
little Chang-fou ; but in the Melican country they do 
not bind the babies’ wrists, so she is sometimes dis- 
obedieTit. 

I work every day, wash the dishes, sweep, take care 
of the baby, and I earn much money. Already I pay 
ten dollars to the company man. I will be very 
industrious. You shall not have to pay. 

Last month we celebrated the New Year. Three 


New Work for Pen-se and Lin. loi 

thousand Chinamen walked in a procession to the 
Joss-house ; and we had feasts, and fireworks, and 
New-Year’s cards. I send my cards to you. (Here 
were enclosed two slips of red paper printed with 
strange black Chinese letters, which neither you nor I 
can read.) 

We had a New-Year’s week, not a month as at home. 
And I went for two -days, but no more ; for I must do 
my work. 

We did not have the new almanacs, as we do at 
home ; but I thought about it, and wondered if the Great 
Emperor had received his, with its covers of yellow 
satin in its beautiful golden case, and whether you 
had bought yours, and were looking into it to see what 
would be the lucky day for writing me a letter. 

My master he asked me one day if I would have 
my hair cut ; but I told him no, not for twenty dollars. 
Yet I should very much like the twenty dollars. 

When I have paid the company, I shall have money 
to send to you. 

When this letter reaches you, I think it must be 
very near little Chang-fou’s birthday. 

I wish I could see you all. When I have earned 
plenty of Melican money, I shall come home to you 
again, and I will always be your dutiful and obedient 

Lin. 

This was Lin’s letter; and now we will 
see how it was received in his home. 


102 


Each and AIL 


It was a pleasant spring day in the Hoo- 
chow country, and the first mulberry leaves 
were coming out. Pen-se and her mother 
were at work, as we have seen them before, 
but the little girl was complaining because 
her winter dress made her so warm. 

“ Tut, tut ! ” said her mother, “ don’t com- 
plain ; you can’t change it, you know, until 
the emperor’s decree comes for putting on 
spring clothes.” 

And the little girl, knowing that to be 
true, tries to think of something else and 
forget her discomfort. And there is a pleas- 
ant subject to think about ; for to-morrow 
will be little Chang-fou’s birthday, and he 
will be one year old. Already his new cap ^ 
and first shoes have come as a present from 
his grandmother, and preparations are. mak- 
ing for a simple feast among the friends of 
the family. 

It was very kind for the grandmother to 
send the cap and shoes, was n’t it } But I 
must tell you something quite curious about 
this present. It wasn’t only because she 
wanted to, that she sent the cap and shoes. 


New Work for Pen-se and Lin. 103 

but because in China it is thought quite nec- 
essary that a grandmother should always give 
just this present, and no other, on the little 
grandson’s first birthday. Now if she had 
wanted to bring him a rattle and a jumping- 
jack instead of a cap and shoes, she could n’t 
have done it ; everybody would have cried 
out that it wasn’t the proper thing; and if 
she ventured to ask, “ Why ? ” they would all 
say : “ It must be so, because it always has 
been so.” You and I don’t think that is a 
very good reason, do we 1 But it is the only 
answer we shall get in China to many and 
many of our questions. If you ask, “ Why 
does the great general wear an embroidered 
tiger on his beautiful silk dress why does the 
writer of books wear one of his finger nails 
two inches long } and why do the princes 
have their almanacs covered with red satin 
and silver, while the emperor’s are bound in 
yellow satin and gold ” to each and every 
question the Chinese will answer: “ It always 
was so, and therefore it will always be so.” 

But we must return to the silk farm and 
the baby’s birthday. 


104 Each and AIL 

All the friends have assembled, and little 
Chang-fou is brought in, dressed in new 
clothes. His mother carries him, and Pen- 
se walks behind, carrying a round sieve in 
which lie various things. There are writing 
materials — the four precious materials, 
Kang-hy calls them — there are little 
money scales, books, fruits, pieces of gold 
and silver, a skein of silk, and some little 
twigs from a tea plant. 

Don’t you wonder what is to be done with 
them all See, the sieve is placed on the 
table, and the laughing baby is seated in 
it among all the things of which I have just 
told you. Everybody watches the little fel- 
low to see what he will do, for they think 
that what business he is to engage in when 
he grows up, is to be decided now by which- 
ever of all these things he first grasps in his 
little fat hand. 

His father would best like to have him a 
wise man and a writer, but the yellow gloss 
of the silk attracts him first, and, stretching 
out his hands for it, he lisps, in his own 
funny language, “Pretty, pretty,” and every- 


New Work for Pen-se and Lin, 105 


body declares that he will be a silk grower, 
like his uncle. 

And now the bowls of rice are brought in, 
and the guests sit around the table with their 
chopsticks, and sip their little cups of per- 
fumed rice wine ; and in the midst of all the 
festivity the postman enters with Lin’s letter. 

Kang-hy is a proud and happy man when 
he reads it, and the picture of Lin with the 
“ Melican baby ” in his arms is passed from 
hand to hand and admired by every one ; 
and one neighbor says to another : “ It will 
be well that we send our sons to this great 
and rich country over the seas.” 

Then they all leave the table and go out 
with firecrackers, to finish the entertainment 
with such a display as we only expect on 
Fourth of July. 

Pen-se does n’t care much for the firecrack- 
ers, for she has heard and seen them almost 
every day since she was born ; but she has 
stolen away into a corner and laid her cheek 
against the pretty face of the “Melican baby.” 
She thinks she should love that little stranger. 
Perhaps she is a little sister, too. 


CAN THE LITTLE BROWN BABY DO 
ANYTHING? 


She is hardly more than a baby. Do you 
remember her little swinging bed in the 
tree, and her birds and flowers and butter- 
flies ? 

What can such a baby do ? I am sure 
she can’t work. 

Yes, she is a little creature, but she shall 
have a little chapter, too, of her own. 

Sometimes when we are doing our little 
work quietly, and not supposing that any- 
body but those who are nearest us knows 
or cares or is helped by it, we find that 
really we have been doing a service for 
unknown friends far away whom we have 
never even seen ; and this is what our 
brown baby is going to do. 

She plays in the forest just as she used 
to ; she gathers flowers and chases butter- 


The Little Brown Baby. 107 

flies. But one morning, after she has been 
to the cow tree with her cocoanut bowl to 
get some milk for breakfast, and has had 
her bath in the stream, and her roll on the 
grass, she sees her mother walking slowly 
through the wood, looking carefully on this 
side and on that, to find the kina trees, with 
their yellow bark ; and even this little girl, 
who is now but five years old, shows us that 
she can work as well as play, and begins to 
pull off the curled bark and bring the bits 
to her mother to see if they are of the right 
kind. And at last, down in the hot valley 
she finds a beautiful evergreen tree, with 
fragrant white blossoms something like the 
white lilac, and she runs to call her mother 
to see the pretty sight. But no sooner does 
the mother look at the beautiful tree than 
she hurries back to call the men, who come 
with their axes to cut it down, for it is a true 
kina tree and will yield many drums of 
bark. 

And while the men are carefully stripping 
the great trunk and large boughs, the little 
girl works busily at the slender branches, 


io8 Each and AIL 

and soon has her basket full of curly strips 
ready for drying. 

“ But,” you ask, “ what is all this for, and 
how is it to be a help to anybody .V’ 

Do you remember the time when Ma- 
nenko had a fever, and the Bazungu gave 
her a white powder and when Gemila, too, 
was ill, and the English lady brought her also 
the same bitter powder Where do you 
suppose they got that medicine 

Probably they bought it at a druggist’s in 
some city. 

But where did the druggist get it } 

Ah, we never thought of that ! Where 
did he, indeed } 

Why, that bitter powder is made from 
this very bark that the brown baby is so 
carefully pulling from the boughs, and her 
country is the only country in the world 
where it grows. Now, only think what a 
kind service she has done for her two 
sisters, Gemila and Manenko, whom she 
has never seen nor heard of. 

She doesn’t travel and take long journeys, 
as some of the other children do. She can 


The Little Brown Baby. 109 

only do her little work in her own home, 
and then send it away in ships far over the 
seas to distant countries. But when her 
drum of kina bark is taken to Arica for 
shipment there is another great package of 
something prettier than bark that goes with 
it, and you will see, by and by, to which of 
the seven sisters this will come. 

There is a pretty little squirrel-like animal 
with the softest of gray fur. If the brown 
baby had any pets or any place in -which to 
keep them I am sure she would want one of 
these little chinchillas, but no doubt it is 
happier in its free forest home than it would 
be in any little house, however fine, with 
which you or I could provide it. And as 
for the brown baby, who has no house for 
herself, she, of course has none for anything 
else. And yet the gentle creature living in 
its burrow and sitting at its little door- 
way in the sun is a great pleasure and 
entertainment to the child, whenever she 
climbs up the hillside far enough to come 
to chinchilla town, for it is almost as much 
of a little town as are the prairie dog towns 


I lO 


Each and All. 


of which you have sometimes heard. In fact, 
the prairie dog is a cousin of this same little 
gray chinchilla. 

Our baby watches them with their tails 
curled up over their backs like squirrels, 
and sees them scamper into their under- 
ground houses when she comes too near; 
and she is sorry, and so am I, when her 
father catches as many of them as he can, 
that he may pack their pretty skins in great 
bundles,* and send them away with the 
drums of bark to be sold. 

Perhaps some of you will have chinchilla 
muffs and caps made from these same little 
skins, so they will be a present from brown- 
baby land. 

Do you want to know how all these pack- 
ages of bark and fur are carried down to the 
ships at the seashore } 

They have neither horses nor carts, as in 
our country, for the mountain roads are too 
steep for such travel, but the packages are 
loaded on the backs of the gentle llamas, who 
can step lightly and safely down the steepest 
paths ; and just as our men are ready to start 









!^¥>yHr 


By 


1 1 1 


The Little Brown Baby, 

with their loaded animals the mountain train 
from the silver mines comes into sight, wind- 
ing slowly down the narrow path along the 
hillside. 

Did you think I meant a train of cars ? Oh, 
no ! it was a train of llamas, with their small, 
graceful, erect heads, and their slender legs. 
How gallantly their leader moves in front, 
with his gayly embroidered halter, and pretty 
little streamer floating from his head ! And 
the others all follow in single file down the 
slope, carrying their burdens so carefully 
that they scarcely seem to need the care of 
the drivers, who clamber along behind them. 
But, when one poor tired little animal sud- 
denly lies down by the roadside, see how 
quickly his Indian master shows both love 
and care for him ! He kneels beside him, 
pets and caresses him, and comforts him 
with tender words, just as Gemila and Alee 
pet their father’s black horse ; and at last the 
llama struggles again to his feet and follows 
his companions, who are almost out of sight. 
They are all loaded with silver from the 
mountain mines ; and when they have left 


I 12 


Each and AIL 


it at the seaport they will carry back salt 
for the mountain people. 

The little fur and bark train joins the 
silver train, and all go together down to the 
ships that are waiting for their loads. And 
the little brown baby watches them out of 
sight, and then goes back to her play and 
her work, and does not dream that she has 
sent anything to Manenko or to Gemila, or 
to any other of those far-away, unknown 
sisters. 


CHRISTMAS TIME AGAIN FOR LOUISE. 


You all remember the beautiful Christmas 
time in the happy home by the river Rhine, 
and the long, hard journey afterwards to the 
new home in the Western forest. 

Do you want to go with me now, and take 
a peep at Louise and Fritz, and Gretchen 
and little Hans.f^ 

We left them in a log house, didn’t we 
But see ; they have now built a larger and 
more comfortable one ; not like the beautiful 
old home by the Rhine, but simple almost as 
the log one, only it has more rooms, better 
fireplaces, and more convenient furniture. 

Louise and Gretchen have a little room 
to themselves, and last summer a morning- 
glory vine climbed all about their window, 
and opened its lovely blossoms to the morn- 
ing sun. Up in that room to-day Louise 
sits down by the sunny window to think for 
“3 


Each and A ll. 


114 

a minute. She has just made her bed and 
put her room in order, and in five minutes 
more she ought to be down stairs sweeping 
the little sitting room. Besides, there is 
another reason for not stopping long, for this 
November day, even if the sun does shine, it 
is not warm enough in that fireless room for 
any one to sit still long. 

What do you suppose she is thinking 
about 1 What do you begin to think about 
when November is almost gone, and December 
is coming.^ “Christmas, Christmas!” I hear 
all the little voices answering. Yes, that is 
what Louise is thinking about. She is not 
wondering what she will have in her stocking, 
nor what she shall buy for papa and mamma, 
or all the brothers and sisters ; but the ques- 
tion has popped itself into her head, “ Could 
I, could I, make a little Christmas tree, such 
as we used to have at home by the beautiful 
river Rhine — a Christmas tree to surprise 
them all 1 ” And she is sitting down for just 
a minute to think how it would be possible 
to do this without telling any one of the 
family. 


Christmas Time fW Louise, 1 1 5 

But to this difficult question no answer 
presents itself, and she must n’t linger when 
there is so much work to be done. So with 
the sense of a delightful secret in her mind, 
she runs down to sweep the sitting room, 
while Gretchen amuses little Hans in one 
corner of the kitchen, and her good mother 
puts the bread into the pans and sees that 
the oven is ready for baking. 

Sometimes I believe our best thoughts 
come when we are busiest ; and I don’t 
wonder that Louise gave a little jump for 
joy in the midst of her work, when it suddenly 
occurred to her that Jeannette, the little 
neighbor who had come last year to live at the 
nearest farm, would help her, and that Jean- 
nette’s tall brother Joseph would certainly 
bring them a tree from the woods. 

Now, I know that she wants to put on her 
hat, and run over to Jeannette’s house to ask 
her about it at once, but she can’t do that, or 
who will mend the stockings, and set the 
dinner table, and wash the dishes, and sweep 
the kitchen floor when all is done } So she 
works on, singing softly to herself, although 


Each and A 11. 


1 16 

she hardly knows what she is singing until 
her mother says : “ What makes you so happy, 
dear? and why do you sing the Christmas 
hymn ? ” 

Louise laughs, and answers: “Why, was 
I singing the Christmas hymn ? I did n’t 
know it.” 

It is three o’clock, and at last the day’s 
work is finished ; and, “ Mother, may I take 
my sewing and go to Jeannette’s?” asks 
Louise. And there is such a tone of satis- 
faction in the child’s words that her mother 
'looks up at her, glad to see her so happy, and 
says : “ Certainly.” 

Jeannette lives in a log house hardly better 
than the one in which we left Louise when 
you knew her long ago. But Joseph has 
made some comfortable benches, and one 
with a very high back that stands always 
beside the fireplace and is called the settle. 
Into the corner of this settle cuddle the two 
little girls, and it is n’t many minutes before 
Jeannette is as happy as Louise over the 
delightful secret. 

Jeannette has no little brothers and sisters 


Christmas Time for Louise, 1 1 7 

to surprise on Christmas, but she already 
loves Gretchen and Fritz and Hans, and 
she enters into the plan most heartily. Of 
course Joseph will get the tree; Joseph will 
do anything for his little sister ; and, if there 
is time, he will also make some little toys of 
wood to put upon it. And Jeannette herself 
can help in a delightful way, for she can do 
something that few little girls of my acquaint- 
ance know how to. Shall I tell you what 
it is } 

Her father and brothers began two months 
ago, after their grain was harvested, to dig a 
cellar for the new house that they mean to 
build in the spring. In digging out the 
earth, they came to a bed of red and brown 
clay, not very hard, and just sticky enough for 
moulding into shape. At first the children 
played with it in a rough way, making balls, 
and sometimes dishes or pans. But one day 
Jeannette patted into shape a little cat that 
looked so much like her own cat. Sandwich, 
that all the children exclaimed at it with 
delight, and, lest it should crumble to pieces, 
she set it in a warm place in the chimney 


1 1 8 Each and A IL 

corner, and baked it until it was hard. From 
that day Jeannette spent all her playtime in 
the clay bed ; and sometimes it was the old 
shepherd dog who sat for his picture, with a 
grave face, and a tail that wanted to wag but 
would n’t, as if he knew what it was all about 
and was keeping still on purpose. Some- 
times it was Bossy, or Brindle, or Cowslip, 
on their way home from pasture ; and at 
last, when her hands grew skillful with 
much practice, she tried the shy antelopes 
that would not stop half a minute to be 
looked at. 

And now Jeannette is planning just what 
she will make for each one, and Louise, who 
has not such skillful hands but just as loving 
a heart, is trying to think what there is that 
can be made without costing any money 
at all. 

There are different kinds of presents in 
the world, you know. Some of them have 
cost a great deal of money, and some have 
cost a great deal of love, and thought, and 
work. This last is the kind I like best my- 
self, and this is the kind that Louise must 


Christmas Time for Louise. 119 

make. Every day while she is about her 
work, her mind is actively thinking, thinking 
always, and first one thing suggests itself, 
and then another. 

“ If we had a feather duster, how convenient 
it would be to brush off the ashes ! ” said her 
mother one day, when a fresh log of wood 
thrown on to the fire set the ashes flying 
even up to the high mantle shelf. And the 
little girl could hardly help exclaiming, “O 
mother ! I will make you one for Christmas,” 
for it quickly flashed into her head that the 
yard was strewn with turkey feathers, and 
why would n’t they make a good duster 1 

It is easier to plan than to execute. But 
that same afternoon she picked up all the 
longest and best of the feathers — the stouter, 
stiffer ones for the middle part of the brush, 
and plenty of soft, downy, fluffy ones for the 
outside. Jeannette’s brother Joseph whittled 
out a smooth, pretty handle for her, with a 
notch near the end, so that she could tie her 
feathers, firmly on, and she worked all her 
spare time for two days before they were tied 
on evenly and well. Even then the ends 


120 


Each and A IL 


stuck up clumsily around the handle, and 
she could n’t think what would make it look 
any better. 

Now somebody is going to help her. Who 
can it be A little far-away sister whom she 
has never seen. 

Do you remember how carefully Pen-se 
tended the silkworms, and gathered up the 
cocoons, and learned to wind off the silk } 
Some of that very silk has been woven into 
a pretty blue ribbon — a ribbon that the kind 
cousin Mr. Meyer bought in New York, and 
sent in a letter, that Louise might have, as 
he said, 

A bunch of blue ribbons, 

To tie up her bonnie brown hair. 

That night, after Louise is in bed and 
almost asleep, she suddenly thinks : “ Why, 
I will tie a piece of my blue ribbon round 
the ends of the feathers, and that will finish 
it off beautifully ! ” So the next day the 
feather duster was finished — the first present 
of all, and it was marked “ Liebe Mutter” 
(Dear Mother) and was hidden away in a 


I2I 


Christmas Time for Louise, 

little chest down at Jeannette’s house, for it 
would spoil everything to have it seen before 
the time. 

But do you think that Louise is the only 
one who has remembered that Christmas 
is coming 

If the little girl had not been so busy her- 
self, and so anxious to get away into some 
obscure corner to do her work unobserved, 
she would certainly have noticed that her 
mother had a curious way of slipping some- 
thing into a drawer which she shut quickly, 
when any of the children came in. And she 
might also have wondered what Christian was 
scribbling at so busily at his corner of the 
table in the evening, but, when Christmas 
time is near, you should not ask too many 
questions, and you should not be surprised 
at very mysterious answers. 

“ Dear Christian,” said Louise one day, 
when she saw her brother preparing to go 
to town with a load of wood, “ if mother can 
spare me, may I go with you ? ” Louise had 
an idea in her head, and she wanted very 
much to get, in the town, some materials 


122 


Each and All, 


wherewith to carry it out; and the chance 
to ride there on the load of wood was delight- 
ful. Her mother was willing and glad to 
have her go, but hesitated a minute over the 
old worn hat and shabby little sack. Then 
suddenly she exclaimed : “Why, the dear child 
shall wear my eider down pelisse.” 

Who remembers the bag of eider down 
that Agoonack’s mother brought to the 
Kudlunahs in exchange for needles and 
thread 1 Did n’t this warm garment come 
from Agoonack’s land, or from some other 
land very much like it 

It was a curious old garment, this pelisse. 
Perhaps you have never heard of a pelisse, 
but I can remember, when I was a child, an 
old lady who had just such a pelisse as this. 
It was made of silk and wadded with eider 
down, and it was as soft and warm and light 
as a bird’s coat of feathers. It was a garment 
like this that Louise’s mother now took out 
from one of those great linen-chests that you 
remember, and she wrapped it carefully about 
her little daughter. It reached almost to 
her feet, and the sleeves covered her hands. 


Christmas Time for Louise. 123 

“ But you will be all the warmer for that,” 
said the “ liebe Mutter.” 

Christian has prepared for her a cozy seat 
among the logs, and away they go. It is 
rather a hard and uneven road, but the snow 
has improved it, and the heavy runners of 
the wood-sled make smooth, broad tracks 
over the as yet unbroken way. 

It is a great pleasure to Louise to go to 
the town. When one stays at home day 
after day, and week after week, the change 
of seeing a new place is very delightful, and 
Louise has rarely been even to the town, 
and only once has she taken a journey since 
she first came to America. That was the 
journey to New York with her father, when 
he went on business, and happened to be 
just in time to welcome the cousin home 
from his long, strange voyage on the ice 
island. 

But what can Louise get to-day in the town 
without money } 

Perhaps you thought she was going to buy 
a little steam engine for Fritz, and a wax doll 
for Gretchen. Not at all. You will hardly 


124 


Each and AIL 


imagine what she can do with the little 
scraps of black kid and white that she has 
timidly begged of the old shoemaker, who 
was about to throw them away. 

This old shoemaker, with his spectacles 
pushed up on his forehead, and his leather 
apron tied round his waist, had always been 
kind to Louise ever since her father took 
her to his shop last summer to be measured 
for a pair of shoes. He had looked at the 
little worn shoe that she took off, and had 
said inquiringly : “ That shoe is not made in 
this country “ No,” answered the father, 
“ that shoe came from Germany,” and the old 
man laid his rough hand caressingly over the 
worn leather, and answered : “ I, too, came 
from the fatherland, but it is now more than 
fifty years since I saw the Rhine.” 

That made them friends at once, and when 
the little girl in her long pelisse appeared 
to-day at his door, old Hans Stoker pushed 
back his spectacles and smiled with pleasure. 
And in response to her timid question about 
the scraps of leather, he pulled forward an 
old box full and said heartily: “Help your- 


Christmas Time for Louise, 125 

self, my little lady, help yourself ; they are all 
at your service.” 

Louise chose long, narrow strips, four of 
them white and four black; but while she 
was busy over the box, old Hans had opened 
the drawer under his bench, and, after measur- 
ing and calculating a minute over a pretty 
piece of red morocco, he cut off two or three 
corners and bits of that. Tossing them 
into the box, he said : “ They would go in to- 
morrow at any rate, so let them go to-day 
instead, and take them if you like, my dear.” 

Louise started with pleasure, and in the 
joy of her heart she looked up in the old 
wrinkled face and decided to tell him her 
Christmas secret. 

“ I am going to make a ball for my baby 
brother. It is to be a Christmas present, 
and I don’t want any one to know. It was 
going to be only black and white, but the 
red stripes will make it just lovely. I thank 
you so much for them ! ” 

The kind old man was as pleased as a 
child would be with the little plan, and he 
offered to cut the leather for her with his 


126 


Each and All, 


knife, if she could tell him how she wanted 
it done. So presently they together con- 
trived a paper pattern of a long piece taper- 
ing at both ends, like the pieces we sometimes 
take off in peeling an orange, and the shoe- 
maker promised to cut them while Louise 
went with Christian to buy yarn for her 
mother. On their return he came out to 
the sled with a neat little package all ready 
for her. 

“ What have you bought of the shoe- 
maker } ” asked Christian as they drove away, 
while Louise looked back to nod and smile 
at the friendly old face in the doorway of 
the little shop. 

“ I did n’t buy anything,” she answered, 
“but questions are not good at Christmas 
time ” ; and she looked up into his face and 
laughed. 

Christian laughed, too, and then they both 
became so lost in Christmas thoughts that 
neither of them spoke for a long time. Just 
before the lights in their own windows came 
in sight Louise said : “ Don’t tell anybody 
that I went to the shoemaker’s.” “Trust me 


Christmas Time for Louise. 127 

for that,” said Christian, stooping to kiss her 
red lips ; and in another minute they were at 
the door. 

Now, what do you suppose the “liebe 
Mutter” had been doing all day long.?' 
There had been work enough, you may be 
sure, but little Gretchen was anxious to fill 
her sister’s place as well as she could, and to 
save the dear mother as much work as pos- 
sible, and Hans had a pile of blocks on the 
kitchen floor, and built houses and castles all 
the morning. And so it was that the mother 
found time to take out of the great chest the 
pretty chinchilla muff that she had brought 
with her across the seas, because it had been 
a Christmas present years ago from her own 
dear mother. 

But what is she going to do with the 
muff.'^ She, too, has a Christmas thought, 
and her skillful fingers will obey that 
thought, and make out of the muff a 
pretty chinchilla cap for Louise — just such 
a cap as I had when I was a little girl. 
Before the children have come home it is 
finished and safely hidden away. So you see 


128 


Each and All, 


a good deal of Christmas work was accom- 
plished on that day. 

Louise kept her package of kid in her 
pocket. It was only when she went up to 
bed and found Gretchen fast asleep that she 
ventured to open it. There were four beau- 
tiful pieces of red, and as many of the black 
and the white. It was n’t many days before 
the pretty ball was finished and stuffed with 
lamb’s wool. It was a beauty. Can’t you 
imagine how it looked, and how pleased 
little Hans will be with it } 

But if I tell you all beforehand, you won’t 
enjoy the surprise of the tree half so much. 
I must leave a great deal untold, and take a 
long leap over to the day before Christmas. 

Just one thing I will let you have a peep 
at — a box which arrived by express at the 
town, ten miles away, and was brought over 
by Jeannette’s brother Joseph, who left it 
down at his house and came up and told 
Louise’s father privately, for he imagined it 
might have something to do with Christmas. 
Don’t you remember the uncles that they 
left in the old home by the Rhine — the 


Christmas Time for Louise. 129 

uncles who wanted Christian to stay with 
them, when his father decided to go away ? 
They are good, kind uncles, and they remem- 
ber Christmas time. Perhaps you will hear 
more of that box when the right time comes. 

The day before Christmas — what a busy 
day that was ! 

“ May I have the sitting room all to my- 
self, all day, dear mother.-^” asked Louise, 
early in the morning. Her mother looked 
surprised. She had guessed that the child 
was making presents of some kind, but the 
attempt to have a tree had not entered into 
her head. She wisely did not say a word 
about it, although she now felt quite sure of 
her little daughter’s plan. 

Jeannette came over, there was a myste- 
rious consultation, and finally a strange and 
bulky bundle covered with a bed quilt was 
hurried into the room, and the door was 
quickly closed. Louise came out for a small 
washtub; Jeannette carried in a basket of 
bricks almost too heavy for her to lift. If 
you had listened outside the door, you would 
have heard many “ Oh’s ! ” and “Ah’s ! ” but 


130 Each a 7 id AIL 

at last a little cry of delight, and, “ There ! it 
stands perfectly firm. Is n’t it a beauty 1 ” 
You, dear children, know just as well as I 
do, how many mysterious runnings up and 
down stairs there were, and slippings in and 
out of that door. But you and I can’t come 
in until the rest of the company do. We 
can only look with great curiosity at Louise 
as she comes out, about four o’clock, with 
flushed cheeks and smiling eyes, locks the 
door, and puts the key in her apron pocket 
with an air that shows us that her work is 
done, and well done, too. 

Coming to her mother, who throws her 
white apron over her work as soon as the child 
approaches, she says : “ Mother dear, when 
we lived at home by the Rhine, we always 
did something at Christmas time to make 
people poorer than ourselves happy. There 
is little Maggie O’Connell down at the new 
house in the clearing, and she has neither 
brother nor sister to help her keep a merry 
Christmas. May we ask her to come and 
keep it with us this evening ? ” 

The mother smiled to see that it was the 


Christmas Time for Louise. 131 

same Christmas spirit, independent of wealth 
or gifts, that shone in her little daughter’s 
face. A Christmas spirit can come even 
without a Santa Claus. But perhaps Santa 
Claus has been here, too. 

So Louise pinned her shawl over her head 
and ran down to the clearing for Maggie. 

In Maggie’s house there were Christmas 
candles, but no tree and no other children 
than the lonely little Maggie, whose two 
little sisters had died of fever a year ago. 
And her mother blessed Louise, who had 
come in a sister’s place to try to make Christ- 
mas merry for her child. 

It was almost dark when the two children 
reached the house, and Maggie was left in 
the kitchen with the little ones, while Jean- 
nette and Louise, with an air of great impor- 
tance, unlocked the sitting-room door and 
went in. It was n’t more than two minutes 
before they threw open the door and called to 
the expectant company that all was ready. 

Don’t laugh at the little tree standing in 
a washtub and supported by bricks. Don’t 
laugh at the three lanterns — common stable 


132 Each and AIL 

lanterns — that are hung among its branches 
in an attempt to illuminate it. Don’t laugh 
at anything, but think only of all the love, 
and the hard work, and the long planning 
that have gone into the preparation of this 
Christmas tree ; and then it will seem beau- 
tiful to you, as it does to me, and did to all 
that happy little company when they saw 
before them the Christmas surprise on which 
those two little girls had employed them- 
selves for the last month. 

There were plenty of festoons of popped 
corn, and there were little tufts of white 
feathers, relieving here and there the dark 
green of the foliage ; but, strictly speaking, it 
was n’t very brilliant. Instead of revealing 
all its beauties at once, it disclosed them 
slowly, and, indeed, some of them could only 
be found and carefully taken off by the very 
same fingers that had carefully tied them on. 

You would have laughed with pleasure to 
see all the pretty animals that Jeannette had 
made ; for each member of the family, his or 
her favorite animal. Here was old Major, 
the horse, made in the character of a paper- 





Christinas Time for Louise. 133 

weight; Gretchen’s white kitty, and Fritz’s 
dog ; and, to the great surprise of Louise, a 
little brown owl for her. 

I have n’t told you how Louise had made 
from pasteboard a pretty chintz-covered arm- 
chair for her little sister’s doll, and knitted 
warm wristers for Fritz and Christian. 

Her father’s present had been the hardest 
to make, or rather to plan, until one day her 
watchful ears caught the words : “ There 
ought to be some safe place beyond the 
reach of little Hans for keeping the news- 
papers.” You see newspapers were rare and 
precious in that Western home. 

Now, if you look under that low bough of 
the Christmas tree, you will see the pretty 
birch-bark newspaper holder, with a bit of 
the Pen-se ribbon tied in to hang it by ; and 
I think you and I can imagine how pleased 
her father is to see that his little girl has 
taken such thoughtful notice of his wishes. 

But you know there are other presents 
besides those that the children have made. 
We have already heard of the chinchilla cap, 
and for each of the other children the good 


134 


Each and All. 


mother has contrived to produce some little 
treasure from her old-time stores. A white 
apron with pockets for Gretchen — she had 
always wanted pockets — new red mittens 
for Fritz, and a picture book pasted on cloth 
for Hans. His father has made a pretty 
sled of chestnut wood for Fritz, and he had 
unpacked treasures for all from the box that 
the uncles had sent from the Rhineland. 
And suddenly the tree began to produce 
fruits that Louise and Jeannette had not 
dreamed of, for both father and mother had 
entered heartily into the fun, and, hastily 
bringing out treasures from their hiding 
places, tied them on to the tree, and as 
quickly took them off to distribute among 
the happy children. 

There was a little writing desk for Louise. 
Peep into it and see its treasures — the ivory- 
handled knife and paper cutter, the pens and 
the paper — everything in order. I am sure 
you remember where the ivory came from ; 
but do you suppose that Louise knows any- 
thing about Manenko, from whose land it 
came ? or did the little dark-skinned Ma- 


Christmas Time for Louise, 135 


nenko dream that the ivory tusks carried on 
her father’s shoulders were going to help 
make a Christmas present for a fair-faced 
little sister thousands of miles away ? 

Then there were books, and pictures, too, 
just in the right time, for now they have 
walls whereon to hang them ; the log walls 
of last year hardly afforded a place. 

“ It begins to seem like our old home,” 
said the mother, as she looked at the beauti- 
ful old familiar picture from which the Ma- 
donna and Child had smiled down upon her 
when she was a little girl. It had been hard 
to part with that when they came away from 
the Rhineland, and now it had been saved, 
and sent back to her. 

Presently Louise spied a little white card 
fluttering at the end of a branch, and, pull- 
ing it down, she read from it the verses 
that Christian had been writing on one of 
those busy evenings when no one asked the 
other, “ What are you doing } ” 

He had ornamented a plain white card 
with a border of delicate-colored lines, and 
written on the back these loving words, 


136 


Each and AIL 


“ For my dear brothers and sisters,” and on 
the other side the following little verses : — = 

We bear the Christmas message 
Brought us so long ago. 

Why have the centuries kept it fresh ? 

Why do we prize it so ? 

Because it is rich with the gold of love 
That with bright, exhaustless flow, 

From unfailing source in the heart Divine, 
Supplies our hearts below. 

And it tells of a tender human bond, 

Since ever the world began, 

For it teaches the Fatherhood of God, 

The brotherhood of man. 

But how can we carry the tidings. 

Make each word as living and true 

To the poor, the oppressed, and the lonely. 

As they are to me and to you ? 

Let them shine in thought, in word, in deed. 

As we work out the heavenly plan ; 

And, blessed by the Fatherhood of God, 

Prove the brotherhood of man. 

This Fatherhood could not leave them 
wherever they might go, and I am glad that 


Christmas Time for Louise, 137 

they felt their brotherhood and sisterhood, 
even so far away there in the Western world. 
It was that that made them so happy, I 
think. ^ 

Have you all the time forgotten little 
Maggie, who had come as a guest to the 
Christmas tree ? 

Were n’t there any presents for her ? Yes, 
indeed, there were. Louise had taken the 
last bit of her blue ribbon, folded it in a 
white paper, and written upon it : “A merry 
Christmas for Maggie.” Jeannette had run 
home to look over her box of clay figures, 
and had chosen the prettiest little cow 
among them to mark with Maggie’s name. 
And the thoughtful mother had taken the 
last new apron she had finished for Louise, 
and put it on the tree for the little neighbor. 

It was a merry Christmas all round, was n’t 
it? It ended with music from Christian’s 
violin, and then a hearty voice outside the 
window sung a merry mountain song. That 
must have been Joseph. 

I wonder if they would have been any 
happier if they had been dressed in silk 


138 Each and AIL 

instead of calico, and had had a tree loaded 
with the richest presents. 

Do you se;e that the seven little sisters 
are finding each other, sending each other 
presents, sometimes even without knowing 
it, and doing for each other many little 
services such as sisters are always glad 
to do 1 

Agoonack has learned from the Kudlunah, 
Manenko from the Bazungu, that in this 
great wide world there are many kinds of 
children, but that one loving Father takes 
care of them all. 

Do you see that it has always been a 
white man who has brought them this 
knowledge of each other ? It was the white 
captain that brought Agoonack to New 
York. It was the good Bazungu that car- 
ried the brown baby’s medicine to the little 
sick Manenko, and it was the English lady 
who brought the same to our poor little 
Arab Gemila, who would have died if she 
had taken nothing but the fakir’s curious 
draught. 


Christmas Time for Louise. 139 


It was an American ship that took the 
silk that Pen-se had wound off the cocoons, 
and carried it to the ribbon weavers who 
made the blue ribbon for Louise. 

Most of you, dear children, who read this 
book, are children of the white man’s part 
of our Father’s great family. And yet I hope 
some little dark-faced sisters may read it, too. 
But to us of the white race some gifts have 
been given which as yet are not shared by 
our dark-skinned sisters. 

You remember that neither Manenko, nor 
Gemila, nor Pen-se, nor Agoonack can read. 
No schools for them, no books, and nothing 
of all the happiness that comes to you 
through books. Think of it; not only in 
that respect, but in others besides, you have 
had more and greater gifts than they. 

Now consider what you would do if some 
day, when you were at home with your 
brothers and sisters, a great bountiful basket 
of presents should come for you, and noth- 
ing for them. 

I am sure I know what would be your 
first thought. And if, in the wider family 


140 


Each and A IL 


of the world, you see yourself with gifts of 
knowledge or of happiness beyond those of 
your neighbors, you will know what to do. 

But do not think that these little sisters 
have done nothing for you. 

Did not Gemila’s caravan carry the gum ? 
Did not Agoonack’s father build the snow 
houses and kill the seals, without which the 
white men would have died ? And did not 
Manenko’s people bring the great tusks of 
ivory ? Does not Pen-se tend the silkworms 
carefully and well, and so have silk to make 
ribbons and dresses for you and your mam- 
mas ? 

They each work faithfully and well in 
their own way ; and faithful work, be it the 
work of the wisest man or of a little child, is 
never wasted or lost. 

They are all helping each other, as loving 
sisters should, and perhaps some day they 
will meet and will realize how each in her 
own little way has done some service for the 
others. 


VOCABULARY. 


EACH AND ALL. 


PRONUNCIATION. — a, e, i, 6, u, as in fate, mete, site, rope, tube; 5, 
6, I, 6, u, as in hat, met, bit, 7iot, cut; a, e, i, o, ii, as in far, her, fir, nor, 
cur ; a, e, i, o, u, as in mental, travel, peril, idol, forum; ee, as in feet; 66, 
as in hoot; ou, as in bough; 6u, as in crojip; gh, as in chair. 


Abdel, Ab'-del. 

Abou, A'-bbu. 

Abreys, Ab'-ns. 

Achmet, Ak'-met. 
Agoonack, A-g66n'-ack. 
Ah Fou, Ah' Fou'. 

Alee, A'-lee. 

Aleikum, A-leek'-66m. 
Ambatch, Am'-batk. 

Arica, Ar'-e-ca. 
Backsheesh, Back'-sheesh. 
Bazungu, Ba-z66ng'-g66. 
Bruin, Bru'-in. 

Cairo, KI'-r5. 

Cha, Cha. 

Chang-foo, Chang'-foo'. 
(^hilobe, ^he-16-ba'. 
Chrisalides, Kris-al'-i-des. 


Dom, Doom, a palm-tree. 
Dhura, D66'-ra. 

Eider, I'-der. 

El Bahr, El' Bahr'. 
Esquimau, Es'-ke-m5. 
Esquimaux, Es'-ke-moz. 
Fakir, Fa-ki'r'. 

Gemila, Jem'-e-la. 
Gretchen, Gret'-hyen. 
Henak, Hen'-ak. 
Hoochovv, H 66-chow. 
Igloe, Ig'-loe, a hut. 

Jean, Jeen. 

Jeannette, Jen-net'. 
Kabobo, Ka'-bo-bo. 
Kang-hy, Kang'-hi'. 
Mandarin, Man-da-reen'. 
Manenko, Man-enk'-o. 


142 


VOCABULARY. 


Maunka, Ma-66nk'-a. 

Metek, Me'-tek. 

Meyer, Mi'-er. 

Mosamela, M5-sam'-e-la. 
Motota, M6-t6'-ta. 

Nalegak Soak, Na'-le-gak S6'-ak. 
Nannook, Nan'-nook. 

A 

Oomiak, 06'-me-ak. 

Pelisse, Pe-les'. 

Pemican, Pem''-i-can. 

Pen-se, Pen'-se. 

Petele, Pet'-e-le. 

Poola, P66'-la. 


Puseymut, P66'-se-m66t. 
Salaam, Sa-lam'. 

Sana, S^'-na. 

Sekomi, Se-ko'-me. 

Sheik, Sheek. 

Shobo, Sho'-bo. 

Sipsu, Sip'-s66. 

Sity, Se'-ty. 

Tanka, Tank'-a. 

Tsetse, Tset'-se, an insect. 
Tye, Ti. 

Yambo, Yam'-bo. 

Zungo, Zoong'-go. 



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